


It's Always Been You

by Aelia_Gioia



Category: Shameless (US), gallavich - Fandom
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bipolar Disorder, Homophobic Language, Ian Gallagher Loves Mickey Milkovich, M/M, Mickey Milkovich Loves Ian Gallagher, Post-Endgame, Prison Endgame Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Prison Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 15:25:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17205944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelia_Gioia/pseuds/Aelia_Gioia
Summary: What happened after the cell door slammed shut and Ian was reunited with Mickey?Homophobic language from everyone's favorite foul mouthed, bossy bottom, hood rat and former closet case, Mikhailo Alexsandr Milkovich.





	1. Chapter 1

“How’d you know I’d be here? How’d you even know I was getting locked up?” Ian was spooning Mickey on the bottom bunk of their shared cell.

Ian's freckled skin was warm to the touch and Mickey was always just a little bit cold. When they laid back to front long enough, their body temperatures evened out and they lost track of where one man ended and where the other began.

He caressed his hand lazily up and down Mickey’s bare chest; their legs were still entwined under the thin, scratchy, prison-issued blanket.

“I Googled ‘hot, ex-Army, bipolar ginger fag’ and I found the Gay Jesus channel on YouTube.”

Ian chuckled and tweaked Mickey’s nipple. “Hot, ex-Army, bipolar ginger fag, huh?”

“I guess you can say I got a type.”

Ian kissed him behind his ear and pulled him closer. “I fucking missed you, Mick.”

“Yeah well, you’re not getting rid of me so easily this time. I can’t exactly get in a car and fuckin' drive away from you.”

Ian paused and turned Mickey’s cheek towards him.

“You think that was easy for me?”

Mickey looked away and made no effort to hide the pain in his voice.

“I don’t know Ian. You tell me. I’m the one who took all the risk, you got to go back to your cozy fuckin’ life after I was over the border.”

“And I regretted it as soon as you were gone.”

“Sure, you did.” Ian sighed and rolled onto his back.

“Watching you drive away was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. But I thought I had changed. I had my shit together for once; a good job, a new relationship;”

Mickey scoffed, barely hiding his jealousy.

 _Yeah? How'd that work out for you?_ He thought. 

He thought bitterly. “And all of a sudden, you were back. I was so confused.”

Mickey sat up with his bare feet firmly on the floor. The dark ink on his knuckles looked even darker by contrast when his fingers went white from the way he was gripping the edge of the bunk.

“Well Ian, I’m really sorry that I fuckin’ confused you,” he spat out.

Ian clenched his jaw and covered his face with his hands, groaning.

“Mickey -”

“Get out of my bunk.”

“Mick, I...”

“Gallagher, I said get the fuck out of my bunk.” Mickey stood up and paced to the cell door, his fists clenched.

“No.” Ian leaned up on his elbow.

Mickey turned to him, a menacing gleam in his eyes.

“The fuck d’you say tough guy?”

“I said, ‘No’. You’re going to listen to me for a minute.”

“I ain’t listenin’ to shit, fuck you.” Mickey cocked his head to one side. Fire burned in his eyes and he was looking ready to bash Ian’s head against the cement floor.

Ian stood up and took three slow steps, carefully avoiding the pile of their discarded prison uniforms and state-issued underwear. He had effectively backed Mickey against the wall of the cell that didn't feel so small until there was nowhere for him to run.

Chills ran up Mickey's back as his bare ass pressed into the cold wall. His nipples hardened and the vein in his neck started to throb. Looking at his face, Ian couldn’t be sure if Mick wanted to kiss him, or beat the life out of him with his calloused, tattooed fists.

Mickey had never held back from slugging Ian before but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Ian was fully capable of overpowering him. He’d gotten even more jacked since they’d last seen each other. He defiantly stared into the taller man’s face, daring him to throw the first punch.

Ian narrowed his gaze and pinned Mickey’s left shoulder to the cold steel of the door. Mickey grabbed at his wrist but Ian easily slipped out of his grasp and held him in place with his forearm across his chest. He pushed a muscular thigh between Mickey's legs, the glorious friction began to excite them both.

“I love you, Mickey. I loved you then, and I love you now. I couldn’t get over you if I tried. I didn't want a life on the run, I was scared. But I wanted you. I should have gone with you.”

As only a confession of love from Ian's lips could accomplish, Mickey's face softened. He wasn't a pussy but Ian knew how to completely disarm him. Ian knew what buttons to push. And he smelled so goddamned good.

Mickey grabbed the back of Ian's neck and yanked him close until they were a tangle of lips, tongues, and limbs stumbling back to the lower bunk.

“I missed you. I missed you so fucking much Ian…”

Mickey held Ian around the waist, letting one hand travel southward to grip Ian's ass so hard he was certain to have marks from Mickey's fingerprints there for days.

Ian's hands were all over him; in his hair, at his throat, scratching down his back.

“I missed you too. I'm sorry…I love you…” Ian flinched when the back of his head smacked against the metal bar of the top bunk, his knees buckled and together they fell hard onto Mickey's mattress.

They righted themselves, adjusting their bodies to lay the long way on the bed. Mickey was on top, straddling Ian's leg, grinding his hips as their tongues wrestled each other for dominance.

“I haven't gone to sleep one single night without jerking off to you,” Mickey groaned. He latched onto the skin of Ian's neck; leaving pink, wet splotches in his mouth's wake.

“Mickey, I'm so fucking sorry…” Ian wrapped one of his legs over Mickey’s and ground his hips into him.

“I dream about you,” Ian confessed. “I wake up in a cold sweat and you're not laying next to me. It sucks just as much every time.”

Mickey screwed up his face. “Ok, Britney Spears. Don’t make me lose my fuckin' boner over some gay shit like that.”

Ian smirked but then used his longer, more powerful legs to his advantage. He kicked against the mattress, giving him the leverage he needed to flip Mickey onto his back.

He threaded their fingers together and kissed him hard. Mickey keened and made a futile attempt to get out from under him. Feeling Ian hard against his skin set him on fire. The fact that they had already had sex twice since the CO slammed the cell door behind him did nothing to lessen their mutual desires. After their achingly long separation, Mickey only wished he had more holes Ian could fuck.

“Are you gonna try to get up on me again, Gallagher?”

“Are you gonna try and stop me?”

Mickey licked his upper lip. He reached down and cupped Ian's balls; the redhead moaned and pushed his tongue into Mickey's mouth.

“Let me turn over,” Mickey said in a breathy voice when Ian started sucking on his neck.

“Not this time, Mick. I want to see your face.”

“Ugh, you're such a fag.” Ian hooked Mickey's leg up over his hip and pushed two fingers deep into him without warning.

“Jesus fuck,” Mickey cried out.

Curling his long middle finger Ian didn’t have to search long until he stroked Mickey’s sweet spot. He chewed on his lower lip and watched his cellmate's eyes roll back in his head and he bit down on his fist as a volume control.

Instead of his usual deep-throated moaning, Mickey let out a soft whine that he'd later deny. It was such a hot, vulnerable noise, it made Ian's balls ache. Ian twisted his fingers roughly and felt the precum start to flow from his cock.

“Fuck…Fuck… Goddamn, Gallagher! I'm open, put your cock in me already,” Mickey commanded.

Ian whipped his fingers out and wrapped his hand around Mickey's neck.

“I’ve had just about enough of that bossy mouth of yours. Keep it up and I'll fuck your throat, maybe then you'll shut the fuck up.”

“Oh, you think you're gonna choke me out? I'd like to see you fuckin’ try.”

Ian smirked and tightened his grip. Mickey's face turned red. With his free hand, Ian lined himself up and pushed past the tight circle of muscle at Mickey's entrance.

He squeezed until Mickey made a wet choking noise. When Ian released his throat, Mickey gasped and let the air flow back into his lungs. He swung his legs up over Ian’s shoulders and rocked his hips, meeting the blistering pace he'd set.

Feeling Ian deep inside him made Mickey’s head spin but he needed to kiss him and it was difficult from that position. He let his legs drop and locked his ankles just above Ian’s ass.

Every time Ian needed to moan, he'd dive into Mickey's neck to muffle the sound. Mickey cupped Ian's cheeks and pulled him in for a kiss. He canted Mickey's hip and drove inside him, striking his core directly.

“Fuck Ian…you're gonna make me nut.”

“That's the general idea,” Ian joked.

His partner's stomach rubbing against his cock was making Mickey's mind want to explode. He arched his back and reached between their bodies to touch himself. Ian pushed himself up to give Mickey more room. The sound of skin slapping skin was deafening in the tiny space.

“Yeah, stroke that fat cock. Cum all over yourself you fucking slut,” Ian felt his climax building.

He doubled down and pumped his hips faster.

“Choke me again, “ Mickey ordered.

“You serious?” Ian looked unsure.

“Christ Gallagher, don’t be such a fucking bitch about it. “

_Slap._

Mickey's face dropped in shock for a moment or two. His cheek stung but he grunted hard and went right back to jerking his throbbing dick.

“When my cock is in your ass, you're my bitch,” Ian spat out. “You want me to choke you?”

His orgasm was so close, all Mickey could do was moan and nod. Ian kissed him, caressing the roof of his mouth with his tongue before closing Mickey's airway off with his hand.

He watched the pleasure mix with panic when Mickey's vision started to blur. He let go just long enough for Mickey to get one gulp of air and then he choked him again. He felt Mickey start to shake and his face got red; his lips parted in a silent scream.

Here it comes. Mickey's hips thrust hard as the first waves of his orgasm struck. His stomach and fist were painted with streams of cum. Ian kept his hand loosely around Mickey's throat, he needed to hear the delicious moan of release and the satisfied laugh Mickey always followed it up with.

Ian licked Mickey’s salty neck up to his earlobe. His eyes rolled back, continuing to jerk his weeping prick and pressed his opposite palm against the wall.

He tightened up around Ian's cock, bringing him to the brink. Ian kissed Mickey brutally again.

“Oohfuck,” Ian shot deep into Mickey, filling him with another hot load of cum.

Glistening with sweat, Ian thrust his hips twice more and collapsed on top of Mickey in exhaustion. Mickey covered Ian's face in tender kisses as the euphoria washed over them both.

He tilted Ian's chin up to look at him. Mickey's voice was barely audible but the power of his words echoed in Ian's ears.

“I love you, too. It's always been you.”

“I should have told you I’d wait for you. When you were locked up because of Sammi. I was angry at everything. I...my fucking brain...”

“Shh. I know. I do. You put me through hell and I’m still here, Ian. I ain’t leaving you again,” Mickey pulled Ian into him and rubbed the back of his neck as he kissed his temple.

“I’m sorry, Mick,” Ian sniffled.

“We have the next two years in here, together 24/7. We're gonna fight, we're gonna fuck,”

“Hopefully more the latter than the former,” Ian interjected.

Mickey grinned and kissed him again.

“We're gonna figure our shit out. When we get out of this shit hole, we're gonna leave Chicago and start over. You and me, Ian. That is all that matters. It's all I ever fucking wanted.”

Mickey wrapped his arms around Ian, pulling him in for a tender kiss.

“Break it up in there!” The CO standing outside their cell banged on the tempered glass window with his fist. Mickey threw up his middle finger at him.

Ian sighed and rolled to his back, letting Mickey sit up and eventually retrieve their clothes.

“We should be more careful. Won’t they separate us if they know we’re together? Isn’t it technically against the rules for us to fuck?” Ian reflexively reached behind his ear for a cigarette and suddenly remembered where he was. Mickey handed him his clothes and they both started to dress.

“Relax. Nobody cares in here Ian. They’d rather us fuck than kill each other. Besides, I made very specific demands in my plea agreement with the DEA. They made my old charges go away, including whatever time I would have gotten for escaping and I agreed to serve two years in exchange for everything I knew about the cartel. If I clam up or recant, they don’t got jack shit. They’ll do what it takes to keep me happy and cooperating.”

Ian nodded, not terribly surprised but impressed nonetheless. Mickey always did know how to look out for himself and land on his feet.

“What about the other inmates?” Ian motioned towards the rest of the prison with his chin.

“Ian, I got your fuckin’ name tattooed on my chest – you don’t gotta be Miss Cleo to figure out that we got history. Who gives a fuck what they think anyway? I was in juvie with half of them – it's like a fuckin’ reunion in here. If I didn’t fuck them, they sucked my cock so they have no room to give us shit.”

Ian rolled his lips inward and bit down. Mickey read his facial expression.

“What? You jealous?” He wore a flirty smirk on his lips.

“Me? Nah.” Ian zipped up his yellow jumpsuit and Mickey snaked his arms around his waist.

“I love you,” Mickey lifted himself up on the balls of his feet to kiss Ian’s mouth.

“Love you too, Mick. I never thought I’d see the day Mickey Milkovich would turn snitch.”

“I didn’t say I was giving them completely accurate information, did I? The Mexican’ts they think are at the top of the food chain are probably all rotting in the fucking Mojave or whatever. I gave them some good stuff and a lot of shit. It’s up to them to make their case; either way I get out of here in two years.”

“The Mojave’s in California,” Ian laughed.

“Shut up, Gallagher.”

* * *

Days and weeks passed, Ian shaved off the last of his dyed black hair and to Mickey’s not-so-secret delight, was once again restored to full ginger status. As Ian got used to being locked up, it was actually not the worst. The food was as abominable as expected but Ian wasn’t a big eater to begin with. He mostly stuck with Mickey but there were a few other guys from the South Side that he knew.

On weekdays they had a routine.

• Wake up at 6

• Stand outside their cell for AM count, shower

• Choke down breakfast

• Work duty (they were both assigned to the infirmary, Ian's EMT training came in handy)

• Choke down the brown bagged lunch

• Finish work duty

• Free time before chow time (this was typically spent in the gym. Ian would lift weights shirtless and Mickey would spot him with half a chub. Sometimes they'd spar or wrestle, depending on what kind of foreplay they were up for.)

• Dinner (the most edible meal of the day, but not by much.)

• Play cards or watch TV until PM count

• Return to their cell, lights out by 10

• Fuck around at least until midnight

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

And it wasn't that bad. Terry had told Ian that the boredom is what would get him but with Mickey around, he didn't get bored.

“I still can't believe you went to see my dad,” Mickey laughed while they put clean sheets on a gurney; the previous inhabitant had vomited all over the old sheets.

“I needed to talk to somebody who'd done time,” Ian shrugged.

“Bullshit, you could have knocked on literally any door in the neighborhood and found somebody who'd been locked up. Why the fuck would you go to the one house where you might have gotten killed on sight?”

Ian changed the pillowcase. “I thought maybe, he'd have heard from you.”

They shared a look and Mickey shook his head.

“You really are nuts, Gallagher.”

“Hey ladies, there's bedpans that need changing. You wanna hurry it up down there?” The CO crossed his arms over his chest and looked at them expectantly.

“Sir, yes sir,” Mickey said quietly.

The only real time Ian spent away from Mickey was during his one-on-one sessions with the prison psychiatrist. Twice a month, he'd get out of the infirmary an hour earlier to go to her office and chat. She was in her mid 30’s, shorter than him, slightly overweight with a big ass, thick thighs and full breasts. She looked exactly like the women Ian pretended to be attracted to when he was younger. She wore her long, dark hair in loose curls and wore trendy black framed glasses. Every time Ian saw her, she was wearing the same black tuxedo pants and fitted dark blue top.

He was reluctant to talk to her at first but then she offered to bring him food from the outside. She called it a “carrot” for his participation. She brought him as many fast food burgers and foot long subs as he wanted, all he had to do was talk. Most of the time, she’d turn her back long enough for him to tuck some food into the pockets of his jumpsuit. You’d have thought he brought Mickey a Ferrari the first time Ian surprised him with a greasy, room temperature burger.

One day, they had been talking about Ian possibly taking some college courses while he was incarcerated. As he sucked down a second Whopper, he mentioned how badly he wanted a cigarette. The prison had banned smoking on the grounds. She smiled warmly at him and opened the clasp of her purse. She pulled out a brand-new pack of Camel Turkish Delights, a Bic lighter and placed them on the table in front of him.

Ian stopped chewing for a minute to look between the cigarettes and her face. He swallowed and reached for them.

“Uh-uh,” she shooed his hand away with her own, but she stood to open her two office windows.

“First you’re going to talk to me about how you’re adjusting.”

“Ok, well um, I’m doing ok.” He continued eating but kept one eye on the Camels.

She picked up her pen and notepad.

“Ian, you know you’re going to have to do better than that.”

He nodded. “I’m fine. I really am. It’s all about routine. I had routine when I was in the army and I need routine because of my...” he paused to take another bite. “Bipolar,” he spoke with his mouth full.

“Mm-hmm. Routine can definitely benefit those with mood disorders. But I don’t want you to drop your guard entirely and not be vigilant for triggers. You’ve had your freedom stripped from you, there are bound to be things that could set off a spiral. If we know what they are, or suspect what they might be, I can help you develop ways to cope in here.”

“I’ve got Mickey. He’s looking out for me. And I look out for him.” Ian took a long sip of ice-cold Coke.

“Yes. Mickey.” She wrote something down and looked at him over the top of her glasses.

Ian nodded. “He’s always been the one. Always. I dated and fucked other people but Mickey was the only one I couldn’t shake.”

She made a noise he couldn’t identify and looked back up at her.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing. I wonder if you’ve considered that he might not be the best support for you. You have quite a lot of history between you and it wasn’t all good.”

“He’s my boyfriend.”

“He has beaten the shit out of you,” she interrupted bluntly.

“Yeah but, I gave it right back to him. You don’t understand.”

“I understand that Mickey is a known, violent drug dealer and former pimp. He has been in and out of the judicial system for most of his life, just like his father.”

She wasn’t wrong. “He loves me. You don’t know what he’s done for me.”

“So tell me,” she challenged him.

Confidently, Ian reached for the pack of cigarettes and smacked it on the heel of his hand three times before removing the outside plastic wrapping. He raised an eyebrow at her and he watched her mouth curl into a smile on one side. He pulled one from the pack, lit it and inhaled down to his toes. He took two more drags, exhaling from his nose while she waited patiently.

“I know everything there is to know about Mickey. Inside and out, you might say. He came out because I threatened to break up with him if he didn’t. When my...my illness took hold of me and I couldn’t control anything I thought or did or felt, Mickey put my broken pieces back together. He made sure I took my meds, he made sure I ate, and didn’t do anything crazy. My sister had enough going on in her life with the other kids and her own shit – it wouldn’t have been fair of me to expect her to do all that for me. I would have literally been on the street, dead or in here a lot sooner if it weren’t for Mickey.”

“Ian, that’s...”

“It’s the truth. He tried harder than anyone else to save me from myself. I’m the reason it didn’t work. My fucking broken brain. I pushed him away. I thought I’d lost him, now I get another chance.”

She pursed her lips and wrote down a few notes.

“Doc, “ Ian finished one cigarette and lit a second. “Look, I hear what you’re saying. And I appreciate you bringing me food that actually tastes like food. I know you’re trying to help me. I have accepted that like my mother, I can’t always trust the things my brain tells me and I need to be on meds. But please, when it comes to Mickey – he's it for me. We’re dysfunctional and sloppy and a hundred different kinds of fucked up. But I’d fucking die for him and if I can’t trust anything else that I know, I can trust that Mickey loves me.”

She nodded and took the opportunity to walk to the water cooler in the corner of her office, allowing Ian to swipe the third Whopper, a half empty box of fries and the entire pack of Camels.

She turned, pretending not to notice what was missing, or the exaggerated bulge in Ian’s pockets.

“Time’s up. We’ll continue this next time. If you have any emergency problems or you want to talk about adjusting your meds, we can meet sooner.”

She pressed the buzzer on her desk, letting the CO outside know Ian was ready to return to his cell. Ian gave her a smile and waited to be told to walk.

Mickey’s teeth were set on edge whenever Ian was out of his sight. He was worried some low-ranking shitstain from the cartel would try to hurt Ian in order to get to him. When it came to Ian, Mickey didn’t trust anyone; they’d spent enough time apart – Mickey was entirely aware that if anything happened to Ian, he wouldn’t make it.

For all he knew, the cartel could have paid off one of the COs and any time Ian was being escorted to or from the shrink’s office he might wind up with a knife in his belly. When he got back to the housing unit after work detail, he took the metal stairs to the second tier of cells two at a time until he got to the one that he shared with Ian.

He walked in, his heart pounding and didn’t see him.

“Hey?”

No answer.

“Ian, you sleeping?”

_That shrink changed his fucking meds again. They’re making him sleep a lot._

He climbed up on his bunk to check the top bed. Ian was stripped down to his white boxers, all the way in the back pressed against the wall. The food he smuggled in was laid out on the bed in front of him.

“ _Layno._..” He said quietly. It was one of the few words his Ukrainian grandmother had been able to teach him. Along with _svynyacha lokhyna_ , but he only remembered that phrase when Svetlana was screeching at him in Russian about something or other and the words flew out of his mouth so fluently, even he was surprised.

“A burger, fries and you half naked? It ain’t even my birthday,” Mickey laughed and raked his hand through his hair as he lifted himself up onto the bunk.

Ian rested his head on his hand, smiling and watching Mickey eat the burger with gusto.

“I don’t want to know if you’re bangin’ this doctor broad Ian but fuck, keep doing it if you’re going to bring me this after you see her. I don’t mind sharing your nine inches with her for a second. Actually – if you could only give her like, six or seven inches; that’d be great. The rest is mine.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and rolled to his back.

Ian shook his head, amused. He took the box of fries and dropped them into Mickey’s mouth one by one. Occasionally, he teased him; holding one fry out and pulling it away when he opened his mouth. When the last fry was gone, Mickey rubbed his soft stomach, satisfied.

“Ughh, real fuckin’ food.”

“I got more than that, Mick,” Ian said.

“If you have a can of fucking beer, Ian...I swear to God, I’ll marry you right now.”

Ian chuckled and reached his arm behind him. He swore for a second that he saw actual tears in Mickey’s eyes when he saw the pack of Camels.

“No...fucking...way...” Mickey shifted his body closer to Ian and went to take the smokes from him.

“Not so fast...” Ian tucked them behind his back again. He narrowed his eyes and pouted invitingly. Mickey sniggered and wet his lips.

“Come here, you sexy fucking ginger bastard.” He grabbed the back of Ian’s neck and crushed their lips together.

“Oh, fuck, I can taste them on you...” Mickey moaned, inhaling the smoke that clung to Ian’s skin and pushed his tongue deeper with their next kiss. Ian grabbed Mickey’s ass and molded his flesh in the palm of his hand. He pulled away first just so he could see the wilting look on Mickey’s face when the kiss ended.

“Good boy,” Ian winked and tossed the Camels to Mickey, who caught them, flipped the pack open and inhaled deeply.

“Is it bad that I’ve got half a stack from just fuckin smelling cigarettes?” Mickey laughed, smelling the pack again. Ian raised an eyebrow.

“Ok, so your tongue has a lot to do with it too,” Mickey admitted. “So, the question is, when and where are we going to smoke?”

“I’ve already sorted that out,” Ian told him with a conspiratorial smirk. “When the infirmary gets a shipment of supplies on Friday, you and I are going to be outside on the loading dock, waiting for it.”

Mickey nodded, “What about the _svynyacha lokhyna_ who’s gonna be watching us?” Ian shook his head,

“COs don’t supervise those deliveries. The orderly on duty does because they go box by box to make sure it’s all there. The COs only have to be there to sign off on deliveries of prescription drugs.”

“You’re a fuckin genius. Come here you,” Mickey kissed him hard again.

The Friday orderly on duty was originally from the South Side and he often lamented the smoking ban. If they gave him a few smokes from the pack, he wouldn’t say anything to the guards about the contraband. All they had to do was hide the Camels until Friday and then they were guaranteed to have at least an hour outside to feed their habit. It didn’t occur to them what they’d do about the smell that was sure to cling to them afterwards, but the CO who escorted Ian back from his psychiatrist appointment didn’t question the smell of smoke on his clothes. They’re cross that bridge when they arrived at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mickey doesn't speak Ukrainian fluently but I think everyone with an immigrant grandparent learned a few words as children:
> 
> Layno - shit
> 
> Svynyacha Lokhyna - pig fucker


	2. Chapter 2

Month three, things got rough. 

Ian had been experiencing severe mood swings and Mickey was having a hard time remaining neutral and understanding. He knew Ian wasn’t strictly in control of his emotions, but there’s only so much abuse he was able to stand before punching something. It was a reaction to stress pre-programmed in him by his less-than-stellar upbringing.   

It was Sunday morning and Ian hadn’t moved from his bunk since Friday night. None of the guards would listen when Mickey asked to speak to the shrink. He’d made up his mind that if Ian didn’t get up or eat by the end of the day, he was going to call Fiona – maybe she could advocate for her brother from the outside. Maybe they’d listen to someone who wasn’t a felon, well, a currently incarcerated felon anyway. 

With his back to the rest of the cell, Mickey couldn’t tell if Ian was sleeping or staring blankly at the wall; they were equally as likely. He climbed up and heard Ian crying. Hesitantly, he touched Ian’s hip. 

“Ian? Do you want breakfast? You haven’t eaten since Friday. Come on, at least take a shower...” 

“What do you mean by that? You saying I’m skinny and I smell like shit?” He pulled away from Mickey’s hand. 

Mickey shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “It is a little rank in here but I was tryin’ to be nice. Come on, Ian. Eat something.” 

“No, thank you.” 

“When is your next appointment with the shrink?” Mickey was exhibiting a massive amount of self-control – he wanted to grab Ian around the waist, throw him in the shower and stuff whatever garbage they were serving for breakfast in down his throat. It would be for his own good. 

“Why? Why do you care?” Ian sniffled and his shoulder shook with a sob 

Mickey sighed and laid on the bunk behind him. Ian resisted at first, but soon relaxed and pressed his back into Mickey’s chest. Mickey reached over him, hugged him tightly and kissed the back of his neck. 

“I care because I love you. I think she needs to check your meds again. You haven’t gotten out of bed in two fuckin’ days and it’s scaring the shit outta me. And if you don’t wash your fuckin’ ballsack soon, I’m going to throw up all over you.” 

Ian chuckled and wiped the tears from his eyes as he rolled to his back. 

“Seriously, it’s fuckin’ gross,” Mickey smiled, relieved that he was able to make Ian laugh. 

“Come on,” Mickey climbed down from the bunk and Ian reluctantly followed him. 

He grabbed a tray in the food line but he hardly needed it; all he took was an apple and a cup of black coffee. Mickey opened his mouth to protest but he decided that it wasn’t worth starting another argument, at least he’d gotten out of bed. Small victories. 

Mickey stabbed a plastic spork into the plastic bowl of bran cereal that turned to inedible mush almost as soon as the skim milk touched it. He couldn’t decide if it looked worse on the way in or the way out. He drank the rest of the milk directly from the hand-sized carton and ate two of his three allotted pieces of plain white bread. In the time it took him to eat all of that, Ian had barely finished his apple and the coffee laid forgotten on the table. 

“Do you want the rest of my bread?” Mickey offered.  

Ian shook his head, the circles under his eyes were growing darker. He looked exhausted, even though Mickey knew he’d been sleeping more than he’d been awake. Ian gave up on his mealy apple, took a sip of the now cold coffee and grimaced. 

“Ugh. Why did I bother?” He pushed the plastic coffee cup away, some of it sloshed out onto the table. 

“Shower?” Mickey said hopefully. Ian shrugged but didn’t resist being led to the shower room. He stripped off and to Mickey’s relief, he showered thoroughly. His spirits seemed to lift afterwards, he started talking more and answered questions with more than one or two words. 

By dinnertime, Ian was acting more like himself. He squeezed Mickey’s leg under the table to get his attention. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. 

Mickey nodded and hid his smile behind his water glass as he drank. 

The following morning, Mickey stood talking with Ian in the med line after breakfast (Ian ate ½ of his orange, all of his plain oatmeal and one slice of bread with jam).  

“You are so full of shit!” An inmate behind them in line said. 

“I swear! I did!” Ian laughed. 

“It’s true,” Mickey confirmed. 

“You hot-wired a fucking helicopter?” The inmate crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Yep. Burned the fuck out of my hand in the process,” Ian held up his hand to show off his scar. 

“You’re one crazy motherfucker, Gallagher,” the inmate said shaking his head and laughing. 

“You have no idea,” Mickey said smiling fondly. He reached out to wrap his arm around Ian’s waist but thought better of it and instead ran his fingers through his own hair. 

It was Ian’s turn at the med cart. Mickey’s smile disappeared when he saw the contents of the clear plastic cup containing Ian’s pills. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa – what the fuck is that?” He held his hand out over the cup, preventing Ian from tossing the pills into his mouth. 

Ian knit his eyebrows together, “Um, my meds?” 

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock. I mean what is that? That one right there?” Mickey pointed at a blue tablet. 

“Um, I dunno,” Ian shrugged. Mickey clicked his tongue at him. 

“You don’t - Jesus Christ, Ian. Are you in the habit of swallowing something just because someone tells you to?” 

“You’d know more about that than me,” Ian winked. 

“I’m not fuckin’ kiddin’ around Ian – what is that?” 

“Is there going to be a problem here?” The supervising CO asked. 

“Nope. Not gonna be a problem at all. He’s not taking that shit until I know what it is,” Mickey crossed his arms. 

“Who’re you, his mother?” The nurse asked, irritated. He was so sick of getting shit from inmates who think they know everything.

Mickey’s blue eyes went dark. “Trust me, if his mother took as good care of him as I do, he wouldn’t fuckin’ be here. Just tell me what the pill is.” 

“I am not allowed to release that information to anyone other than the patient,” the nurse said defiantly. 

“Ok - so fuckin’ tell him, Jesus fuck,” Mickey looked at Ian. 

“Yeah, I would like to know what I’ve been taking.” 

The nurse looked to the CO, who sighed and nodded his permission to indulge them. 

“Fine. Gallagher, Ian C.,” he said flipping through a list on a clipboard. “Antipsychotic: Lomanzipine; antidepressant: Buproprion, mood stabilizer: Lamotrigine.” 

“ _Lamotrigine?_  You mean Lamicdal? He can’t take that.” Mickey looked like he was going to slap the pills out of Ian’s hand if he tried to take them. 

“Who says he can’t?” The CO reached for the pepper spray on his belt. 

“Me. I say so,” Mickey snapped.  

Ian looked back and forth between Mickey and the nurse. 

“And where did you get your medical degree, Doctor Milkovich?” The CO mocked him. 

“Ha ha, you’re a funny fat fuck. He had a bad reaction to Lamicdal when he tried it before. It made his tongue swell up and his throat closed – I had to get him to the emergency room at three in the morning when he couldn’t fucking breathe. They almost had to fuckin’ intubate him – he's not taking that.” 

Ian put the cup down on the med tray, Mickey continued his lecture and got louder with his insistence. 

“He can take Depakote, he can take Lithium. He did better on Risperdal than Lomanzipine before but that’s fine. He’s not gonna take Lamicdal. Period.” 

Ian smirked at Mickey, it felt good to have someone speak up for him that actually knew what he was talking about. And it made his heart beat a little faster to know that Mickey still remembered the gigantic list of psychiatric meds he’d tried. It was almost romantic. 

“For your information, _Doctor_  Milkovich,” the nurse began, still looking at the chart. “He has been taking the Lamicdal for a week and a half. As his tongue doesn’t appear to be swollen - open up, Gallagher, let me see.” 

Ian threw a sideways glance at Mickey and obliged. 

“Nope, no swollen tongue, his throat is clear. Gallagher, I suggest you tell your boyfriend to back off until he passes his MCATs. He might want to learn how to read first. Come to that, he might want to grow opposable thumbs first.” 

“A week and a – I'm sure you did all of your fuckin’ research on WebMD or whatever but it takes at least two weeks for a mood stabilizer to get into your system,” Mickey sniped at the nurse and turned to the CO. 

“Officer – you don’t have to like me – I don’t like me. But unless you want him to fuckin’ suffocate and die on your watch, I’d get the fuckin’ doctor on the phone and get her to prescribe something else.” 

“Fine. Gallagher, take the other two. We’ll get in touch with Dr. Sanchez,” The CO groaned but he had to admit that the little shit had a good point. It would be a lot of paperwork and a huge pain in the ass if Gallagher died. 

Ian dug the blue tablet out of the cup with his finger and put it on the top of the cart. He motioned to lift the cup to his mouth but Mickey stopped him again. 

“NO.” 

“Milkovich, what the fuck?” The frustrated CO was out of patience. 

“He can’t take an anti-depressant without the mood stabilizer. He’s fuckin’ bipolar. Anti-depressants can have the exact opposite effect without the mood stabilizer. Oh my Christ – don't you people know anything? Get him some Lithium and Xanax with the Welbutrin.”  

The nurse copped an attitude. “You know, Milkovich – this seems like drug-seeking behavior. You want him on Xanax? Why not Haldol?” 

“Because Haldol makes him a limp-dick zombie. Just like you,” Mickey was ready to go toe-to-toe with this fucker if it kept Ian out of the hospital. 

“Are you making your cellie cheek his meds for you? Are you selling them? Snorting them? Shoving them up your ass?” The nurse glared at Mickey.  

“What do you say, Gallagher? Is Milkovich giving you a little fucky sucky action in your cell at night in exchange for your meds?” 

Mickey snorted. “Nah, I get all my fucky sucky action taken care of when your wife and your daughter come visit me, dickhead.” 

The nurse went to lunge at Mickey and when he lunged back, the CO hit him in the stomach with his elbow, then in his face with a closed fist. Mickey hit the cold tiled floor with a sickening thud; a gash opened up over his eye. 

“Fuckin’ sucker-punching son of a bitch!” Ian started after the CO but the inmate behind him grabbed his arm. A crowd had gathered and they were cheering for whoever hit who first. 

“Alright, alright – everybody knock it the fuck off,” a more senior CO stepped in. He pushed the other officer and the nurse away from Mickey and grabbed him under the arm, lifting him up to his feet. Ian cringed at the sight of his split lip.

“You alright, Milkovich?” 

Mickey spat blood on the floor, “Fuckin’ dandy.” 

“Show’s over. Gallagher – skip the meds for the minute. I’ll call the doc myself. You’ve got infirmary duty anyway, Milkovich. Have them look at you while you’re there. Show’s over ladies. Move along.” 

Ian put his arm around Mickey’s shoulders and kissed his temple without any regard for who might be watching. It didn’t occur to Mickey to push him away.  

Mickey was told to rest on a gurney with an ice pack on his mouth to treat the swelling, luckily, he didn’t need any sutures. Two butterfly closures cinched the gash over his eye. Ian made a show of fussing over him, offering him blankets and extra pillows, Mickey answered him with a stone glare.  

“Do you need a bedpan?” Ian teased him. 

“No,” Mickey said darkly. “But if you want to suck my dick, that’d be good.” 

“Obviously I’m going to. Even if my dick is just for show now,” Ian said resentfully.  

“You know that’s a side effect. Maybe whatever the shrink puts you on next, it won’t happen.” 

Ian pursed his lips together and laced his fingers with Mickey’s. “Yeah. Maybe. Maybe not.” 

“Well you know, worst comes to worst, you’re on good terms with her – get her to give you some Viagra,” Mickey winked but groaned, his eye hurt. 

“Or I could just get off the meds completely and we can fuck like we did when I first got here...” Ian said. 

Mickey raised both eyebrows at him. 

“Kidding,” Ian said, not looking like he was kidding at all. He started to walk away but Mickey called him back. 

“Ian - we have more than that. Ya know? I mean, your cock does great work, don’t fuckin’ get me wrong but that’s not why I’m with you; that’s not why I love you...” 

Ian gave him a small smile. “Well don’t get all touchy-feely on me, Mick. I’m only with you because of that tight ass.” 

Mickey rolled his eyes and laughed, “Fuck you, Gallagher.” 

“Gallagher.” 

Ian turned towards the voice. It was the CO who broke up the fight in the meds line. 

“Yeah?” 

“Come with me. The doc wants to see you.”  

Ian looked back to Mickey to say goodbye. “Maybe I should come? You were really out of it when we were cycling through drugs. You might not remember...” 

“Gallagher - that was not a request.” 

Ian quickly kissed the back of Mickey’s hand before he followed the CO out of the infirmary towards Dr. Sanchez’s office. 

Two weeks later, Ian was feeling a lot better; less foggy, more positive and he could finally get hard again. While Ian was having his bad days, Mickey gave him as much space as their cramped quarters would allow. Now that Ian was over that miserable med adjustment hump, they slept wrapped in each other’s arms every night. Most nights, Mickey was the little spoon, which was his preference (although he would never vocally admit that).  

He woke up one Saturday morning with the scent of Ian’s sweaty skin lingering around him like a cocoon. They had fucked twice after lights out. When they were joined together, they felt free. They could have been back in Ian’s room at the Gallagher house – or in their own apartment. Nothing outside the steel door existed. It was just the two of them and no one else. 

Mickey tried to stretch but Ian was fast asleep and felt like dead weight on him. He felt something wet on his neck. 

“Shit Ian, are you fuckin’ drooling on me?” 

He wiped his neck with his hand and it took a minute for his brain to register what he saw on his fingers. 

Red. 

Blood. 

 _I’m fucking covered in blood._  

 _It’s not mine._  

 _That means it’s..._  

Mickey had no idea how long he was screaming for help until the CO finally showed up at their cell door. 

“Ian! Ian! Ian wake up! Come on man, wake the fuck up! Ian...please...fuck. Ian, I love you – wake the fuck up...” Mickey was kissing Ian’s ashen face and used his undershirt to wipe the blood away. He recoiled in horror to see it also dripping from his ears. 

Three COs busted into their cell, shouting at Mickey to get off of Ian’s limp body. 

“Back off, Milkovich!” 

“Please - you gotta help him! IAN!” 

“Against the wall!” 

“What?! No – help him!” 

“Down on the ground!” 

A CO grabbed Mickey by the ankle and yanked him off Ian’s bunk. Mickey yelped in pain when his hip crashed against the concrete floor. A second CO got on top of him, ordering him to turn over onto his stomach and put his hands behind his back, the words weren’t making any sense. 

“Ian! You’re gonna be fuckin’ fine. I promise. Jesus Christ Ian, don’t you fuckin’ die on me!” Hot tears were pouring from his eyes and he made no effort to stop them. 

All 50,000 volts of the CO’s taser hit him and Mickey convulsed violently. He didn’t follow any of the orders he was given; he didn’t hear any orders. He didn’t hear them say if he didn’t comply, he was going to be tased. The entire world was silent and in slow-motion except for his screams to Ian; his anguished cries for someone to do something. 

Through the pain, Mickey barely registered watching the medical team that pulled Ian off his bunk and rushed him out of the cell. He became keenly aware of the action around him once Ian was wheeled out of the cell. 

“Take Milkovich to Seg!”  

“Wha -  _NO!_  I have to go with Ian! NO!” Mickey tried to fight them off but he found his muscles were non-compliant. They strapped him into a chair and he was forcibly moved to solitary confinement. He screamed for Ian until his throat was sore. 

His screams quieted to a whimper and he was eventually released from the restraint chair. He was warned to sit on the floor completely still until the door shut again. As soon as it was closed, he sprang to his feet and was calling to the guard, asking for news about Ian. He was ignored. 

Two days passed and since he was not allowed out to shower, Mickey was still covered in Ian’s blood. Every time a CO appeared at the flap in the door with a tray of food, Mickey would beg them for help.  

“Please - is he alright?” 

“Can I see him?” 

One guard finally answered him. 

“ _See him?_  Milkovich - you almost killed him – do you think they’re going to let you anywhere near him again?” 

“I didn’t do shit! I swear to fuckin’ god – I didn’t do anything. Is he alright?” 

“He’s in the infirmary. He’s stable,” he slid the flap shut again and that’s all Mickey knew. He held onto those words for the next three days. 

 _He’s stable._  

 _Stable._  

 _He’s ok._  

 _He’s not in the hospital – that's good._  

 _Please be ok Ian._  

The guards continued to ignore his pleas for information, so Mickey had to get a little creative.  

The flap opened and Mickey wasn’t there to take his tray or to ask for an update on Ian’s condition. The guard looked in the cell and saw Mickey laying on his back on the floor, there was blood on the wall. 

“Oh, what the fuck - “  

He unlocked the cell and found Mickey dazed on the floor. There was so much dried blood on him the CO hesitated touching him and couldn’t tell where he was bleeding.  

He called for a medical team to bring Mickey to the infirmary. They assessed him quickly and discovered that his only real injury was a broken hand, he’d punched the wall repeatedly until the bones collapsed on themselves. They determined that the pain was so extreme, he had passed out due to the shock. 

He eventually came to and opened his bleary eyes. It was night, the infirmary was quiet except for scattered snoring. He took a quick scan of the beds and saw Ian five beds down from him in the opposite row. Mickey carefully swung his legs to the floor and waited for the vertigo to pass. 

He shuffled slowly towards Ian, increasing his speed as he got more than half way there. He took Ian’s hand with his unbroken appendage and squeezed. 

“Ian.  Ian, it’s me. Wake up,” he whispered. He looked around before touching his lips to Ian’s. He pressed his forehead to Ian’s cheek. 

“Ian...please baby, wake up,” his voice broke. 

“Now who’s Britney Spears? Ya big fuckin' queer,” Ian croaked. 

Mickey swallowed hard and in spite of himself, he laughed for the first time in days. Relief washed over him until he tucked his face into Ian’s neck and sobbed. He held onto him as tightly as he dared. 

“Shhh. I’m ok, Mick. I’m ok,” Ian raised a hand to the back of Mickey’s head and stroked his skin lovingly. 

Mickey sniffled and wiped his nose on his arm. 

“I thought I lost you. What the hell happened?” Mickey asked and crawled up on the bed and curled his body around Ian’s, unable to get close enough. 

Ian cleared his throat and shifted over to give Mickey more room. 

“They think it’s a side effect, some SSRIs can cause abnormal bleeding,” Ian sounded weak. 

Mickey sighed in frustration and a hint of relief – if it was an SSRI, they’d know he didn’t do anything to hurt Ian and they wouldn’t be split up. 

“So now what?” 

“Try another SSRI I guess. Mick?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Stay with me, please?” 

“Gallagher if you think I’d get out of this bed right now, you’re fuckin’ crazier than either of us thought.” 

“I love you.” 

“I love you, too. Go back to sleep.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Milkovich, what in the hell are you doing? Get in your own goddamned bed.”

Mickey’s eyes popped open the following morning and he saw the unfriendly face of his least favorite of the nurses that worked in the infirmary. She was just as bad as the jerkoff in charge of the med cart.

“Aw, come on Mary – I didn’t even get to suck his cock yet. You can watch if you want,” Mickey joked as he flipped his middle finger at the nurse. She glared at him with the facial expression of a woman who'd done nothing but suck sour lemons for the last year.

He eased out of Ian’s bed and pushed himself under the ice-cold covers of the conveniently empty bed next to him.

“Eat shit, Milkovich.” She rolled her eyes and walked away.

“Is she gone?” Ian turned his head and peeked at Mickey with one eye open.

“Nurse Ratched? Yep. She’s off to spread her joy else fuckin’ where,” Mickey put his unbroken hand behind his head and examined the hard cast on his broken hand.

“What happened to you?” Ian finally noticed Mickey’s cast.

“This? Oh, I was thinking about changing shit up in bed. Think you can take all of this, Mr. Switch?” He held it up and raised his eyebrow, Ian laughed.

“Seriously, what happened?”

Mickey explained about getting pulled off Ian’s bunk, tased, strapped to the restraint chair and thrown into the segregation unit. Ian’s face turned red with anger and white with shock alternately.

“I needed to see you. Once I knew you weren’t at the hospital, you know, I just punched the wall until I passed out. I broke it really good.” He almost seemed proud of it.

“You broke your hand just to see me?” Ian crossed his arms over his chest.

“Romantic, ain’t I?”

“About as romantic as this scenario is going to get, yeah,” Ian laughed. They both reclined against their pillows.

Nurse Mary was at the top of the row of beds, handing out breakfast trays, maintaining the bedside manner of a grizzly bear on its period.

“Eat. Or don’t. I couldn’t give less of a fuck,” they heard her say to another inmate.

“She’s so good with people, I wonder why she got shitcanned from the old folks’ home,” Mickey said, shaking his head.

“Right? Who wouldn’t want their aging grandmother being looked after by someone so loving and gentle.”

“Hadley - did you shit yourself _again_? I swear to god I’m going to find your mother and shove my foot up her cunt for the way she potty trained you.”

Ian snorted at that comment.

“What?”

Ian stifled himself with his hand - “She’s the only one on duty. At this hour of the morning, she's got to clean him up, there’s nobody else.”

“Damn, if I only had a cup of coffee right now, I’d fire off a gagger she’d never recover from,” Mickey said. “Watching her clean it off my balls would be completely worth the indignity of shitting myself.”

“Don’t...make me...laugh...” Ian grabbed at the stitch in his side and tried to repress the laughter.

The left side of Mickey’s mouth curled up into a grin. His eyes, the same clear blue of the summer sky, came to meet Ian's.

Mary sneered at them both as she pushed their breakfast trays at them.

“Mick, do you ever think we'll be normal?”

Mickey cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

“Fuck you, I'm normal,” he said with a cheekful of cold toast with raspberry jam.

Ian smiled. “I mean like, normal people. Going to work, coming home and making dinner, folding laundry…”

“Fuckin' bike rides through the park and vanilla sex on Sunday? You really want that boring shit?”

Ian gave him a look, “After all the shit that's gone down Mick, yeah. I think we've earned a little boring.”

Mickey pouted his lip out, considering Ian's point.

“Maybe without the vanilla sex.”

“Ian, we're both gonna be convicted felons when we get out. Aside from stocking shelves at the convenience store, I've never had a straight job in my life and you’re fuckin bipolar. People ain't gonna bend over backwards to give us jobs. But we'll get something. And, you know. A place.“

“You're asking me to move in with you?” Ian raised an eyebrow and took a large bite of a surprisingly crisp apple.

Mickey looked away from him, smiling. “Yeah, motherfucker, I guess I am. D'you want to give me an answer now or you gonna leave me hanging?” He snuck a look back at Ian, who had such a cocky expression on his face it made Mickey want to suck him off right then and there.

Ian took his sweet time silently chewing another bite of his apple before he nodded. “Ok. I'm down for that.”

They were both released from the infirmary later that day, after dinner. As he’d hoped, the COs realized that Mickey was telling the truth and hadn’t caused Ian’s injuries so he wasn’t put back into seg. Mickey walked at an unnaturally slow pace staying slightly behind Ian, just in case he needed to catch him if he got dizzy. Ian seemed a little weak by the time they got back to their cell. He yawned and groaned as he climbed up onto his bed. Satisfied that Ian wasn’t going to roll off the edge of his bunk, Mickey rested quietly on his own, allowing his eyes to close briefly.

“I'm cold,” Ian broke the silence.

In reply, Mickey climbed up next to him. Pulling the blanket over them both, Ian slid himself under his arm, resting his head on his chest. Mickey kissed the top of Ian's head and held him close. Ian loved that Mickey knew that's exactly what he wanted. He had to curl his long legs into a terribly uncomfortable position but it was nice to be held for a change. Ian sighed and listened to Mickey’s heartbeat, inhaling the earthy smell of his skin. Mickey felt himself start to drift off.

“Mick?”

“Yeah, what?” he shook himself awake.

“When did you know you were gay?”

 _Ugh. You're really gonna try to make me talk about this shit right now_?

“Ian…”

“Just tell me. I'll tell you…” He began.

“That's where we're different. I don't give a shit when little Ian Gallagher got his first hard-on for a guy.”

“OK, fine. Jesus,” Ian swallowed hard and grunted.

Mickey shifted, he had been rendered physically uncomfortable by the conversation Ian was attempting to have with him. His mood softened and he ran his hand up and down Ian's arm.

“I'll tell you one thing. I remember the first time I saw you, Firecrotch.”

Ian smiled and looked up at his boyfriend, expectantly.

“You do?” Ian felt a little guilty; he didn't remember the first time they'd met. He knew who Mickey was, of course, the Milkovich brothers were legendary at Lincoln Grove. Nobody messed with any of them, least of all Mickey. He’d stabbed a kid in the hand with a pencil for sneezing in his direction once.

“Yep. I remember,” Mickey closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Even after everything they'd already said to each other since their reunion, he was still holding onto a portion of the wall he'd built up around himself. Ian had burned him so many times. He didn't like the vulnerability confessions like this made him feel.

 _Fuck it_.

“You were in my kitchen; you and Mandy. She was drinking a beer and your fine ass was leaning over the counter eating a bowl of cereal. She said something that made you laugh and some milk dribbled down your chin,” he traced his fingertips delicately from the corner of Ian's mouth down his chin and back up again.

“I went to the fridge for a beer and you like, jumped, when you saw me.”

“You were scary as fuck to me back then.” Ian said.

Mickey let his fingers aimlessly travel across Ian's jawline and lips as he spoke.

“Oh, am I not fuckin scary anymore, Army?”

Ian shook his head and let the very tip of his tongue touch Mickey's fingers. He slid his fingertip into Ian's mouth for a second and felt a gentle suck that made him shiver.

“Nah. Once you begged me to dump a load in your ass, you ceased intimidating me.”

“What the – I _never_ said that shit. I don't beg,” Mickey squeezed him tighter.

“Oh no? You forgot that one, huh? You stopped short of calling me 'Daddy'. ‘Ooh fuck Ian, that's so good…give it to me…gimme your cock harder, please harder…cum in me, cum in me…I need it…please…’” Ian mimicked the feral way Mickey moaned the night they fucked on the dock when he was a fugitive. It was so _hot_.

Mickey's cheeks and the tips of his ears burned red. He hadn't forgotten the night on the dock, how the fuck could he? Ian was still essentially a kid when Mickey went to prison; when he escaped, Ian had become a legit _man_. He was ripped like a fucking bodybuilder. He remembered Ian taking control, teasing his neck with his tongue while he pressed up behind him. He could still hear the sound of Ian’s belt being whipped out of the loops of his pants. Mickey was manhandled in a way he didn’t know he craved. Even when he was strictly dominant, Ian still lovingly placed his hand on top of Mickey's and kept him grounded by stroking the back of his hand with his thumb. He got hard even thinking of the way Ian fucked him that night.

“Anyway,” Mickey changed the subject back. “I got a beer from the fridge and asked Mandy who you were."

Ian had a vague recollection of the day, “What you actually said was ‘who's the fucking ginger?’”

“That's right,” Mickey grinned.

“And?” Ian shifted position to lay on his stomach so he could see Mickey's face.

“And. I thought you were…cute.”

_Cute? Mickey thought I was cute?_

“Wipe that look off your fuckin face, Gallagher. You were a skinny, 15-year-old faggot with goofy hair in hand-me-down jeans.”

“Yeah but you still thought I was cute,” Ian grinned. “Why didn’t you make a move?”

“And take the risk of you blabbing to anyone who’d listen?” Mickey shook his head. “Nah. You were strictly off limits. You were Mandy's friend. You can imagine how conflicted I felt when she made up that story about you trying to fuck her. I had to defend my sister but I didn’t love the idea of smashing this beautiful face in,” he stroked the back of his fingers against Ian's cheek.

“And I appreciate that you didn't do it.”

“I didn’t really believe her anyway.”

Ian raised an eyebrow at him, “No? Why not?”

Mickey screwed up his face in a ‘you've got to be kidding’ look.

“Come on, Ian. I was in the fuckin’ closet, I wasn't wearing a blindfold.”

They laughed together as Mickey lovingly ran his fingers through Ian's hair.

“I didn't know if you were 100% homo or what. And I didn't know if you were a top but when I had you pinned down on my bed...”

“That was really hot, by the way.”

“Yeah it was. I figured I could like, teach you to top if I had to. Little did I know you'd been stuffin’ that raghead's ass all along. It figures that my skanky sister's friends would be just as skanky as she is.”

Ian grimaced. “Mandy’s not a…”

“The fuck she isn't. Those fuckin’ tiny skirts she wears with just a g-string underneath? Do you have any clue how many scumbags Iggy and me shook down for taking upskirt shots of her on the L? I'd beat the shit out of somebody else for sayin’ it but, Mandy's a ghetto skank. Like your sisters.”

Ian grunted. “Wait just a second-"

Mickey smiled and shook his head. “I’m not passing judgement Ian, but look at the facts. Fiona is a boss bitch. She’d fight to the death for anybody she cares about. I don't know how she managed to take care of all of you for so long and dealt with your fucking parents. But do you know what people around the neighborhood used to call her?”

“Nope,” Ian braced himself for it, he was sure it was going to be horrendous.

“They called her ‘Skippy’. ‘Cuz she spreads as easy as peanut butter.”

Ian snorted, the more he thought about it (not that he liked the idea of his sister getting railed by multiple dicks) but, yeah. Mickey was right.

“Like I said, it doesn’t make her a bad person but she's easier to get into than a junior college. And Debbie…well. I remember Debbie as a cute little kid, but she had a baby at what, 14? The evidence stands for itself. Mandy, Fiona and Debbie; they're three peas in a penicillin pod.”

Ian was quiet for a while, thinking about Mandy. He missed his one-time beard and best friend. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her.

“Does Mandy know you’re back? Have you heard from her?”

Mickey nodded. “Yeah. She wrote to me, said she was going to put some money on my commissary account but she never did.”

“Think she’ll visit you?” Mickey shrugged.

“You and her are the only ones who ever visited me. Besides the Ruskie,” he referred to his former wife with more than a little bit of venom, then he went quiet.

Yawning and satisfied to finally be back in a bed with his arms around Ian, Mickey let himself fall asleep. Ian was drowsy but he forced himself to stay awake just a little longer; he loved watching Mickey sleep.

His full lips parted gently and all Ian wanted to do was kiss him. Nudging Mickey’s jaw to the side with his nose, Ian took a deep inhale of his skin before drifting off to sleep on a Mickey-scented cloud.

Something unusual happened the next morning during breakfast. The CO in charge got everyone's attention and the cafeteria went quiet.

“I have an announcement, I'll make it quick. Beckman Correctional has been selected to take part in a work training pilot program instituted by the county. It means new work details will be available and you'll receive real life experience designed to aid in attaining employment upon release. The first program coming online is for kitchen work; cooking and food prep. This initiative is funded by federal grants that are going to pay for better food for you mutts, so don't be a wiseass and do something to ruin it for everybody. The requirements for entering the program are as follows: less than three years left on your sentence for non-violent crimes. If you kept your hands to yourself and your pecker in your pants, I figure that will work. Previous kitchen experience is preferred but not required. If you want to be considered, sign up at the guard station.”

An excited rumble of enthusiasm went through the gathered men. Any variation of the monotony of their daily lives was cause for excitement – plus the guard had said the food would be improving.

“Mick? You ok?”

Mickey blinked and realized he had zoned out from what Ian had said.

“Hmm? Yeah. Yeah.”

Ian screwed up his face, confused but he let it go. Mickey told Ian he had to go to the bathroom after they finished eating. Ian threw away their garbage and returned their trays. Mickey very quickly signed his name to the list for the kitchen program when Ian wasn’t looking.

They were playing cards a few days later when a CO called both of their names and a few others. Sharing an uneasy look, they folded their cards and left the game. Approaching the guard, Ian shrugged his shoulders in a question.

“You’ve got visitors.”

Ian’s smile faded when he looked over at Mickey.

“What’s wrong?”

“No, nothin’ Nobody ever comes to see me.”

They followed the guard single file towards the visiting area. Ian craned his neck to see who was sitting at the aluminum table waiting for him. He caught sight of a mop of long wavy hair through the plexiglass window and his heart leapt.

The guard opened the door reciting the rules. “One hug at the beginning and end of every visit, no physical contact during the visit at any time...” he rambled off a half-dozen others but Ian wasn’t listening. He was crawling out of his skin to hug Fiona. Mickey looked around the room confused until he realized that Fiona was probably there to visit both of them.

She pulled her hair into a messy bun on top of her head and a smile lit up her whole face when she saw Ian rushing over towards her. He saw her eyebrows knit together and her lower lip curled outward, she was on the verge of tears.

“Walk, Gallagher!” The CO warned, Ian obeyed begrudgingly. Mickey crossed his arms and walked slowly behind him.

As quickly as he could while still following the rules, Ian crossed the room. Fiona wrapped her arms around his neck and he easily lifted her off her feet for a moment. He felt her tears on his cheek and she sniffled hard near his ear.

“That’s enough,” the CO called out to them.

Ian turned and shot him a look while Fiona wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

“Mickey – hi,” she said shyly. Unsure if he would accept, she held her arms out to hug him too. Mickey gave her a small smile and gave her a quick hug with one arm.

The three of them sat and Fiona's knee shook nervously. “Ian, I am sorry I wasn't there the day you got here. I'm such a shitty sister, I was wrapped up in my own mess with Ford…it doesn't matter. I should have been here. I'm so sorry,” her voice started to break.

“Fi…it's ok,” Ian forgave her but she wouldn't forgive herself.

“How are you? Are you ok? Are you getting your meds?” She hadn't looked at Mickey since they sat down and his attention started to wander.

“I'm fine, Fi. I swear. I'm taking the meds, I see the shrink. I'm ok.”

Fiona turned to Mickey, “Is that true? He might bullshit me, you won't.” Mickey nodded.

“Well, they tried to give him Lamictal but…”

“Wait, is that the one that made him -"

“Yep. I took care of it. He's ok Fiona,” Mickey frowned, looking down at the tabletop.

“Sorry Mickey – how are you?”

“Fine. Thanks.”

She nodded. “If there's anything good about him being in here…at least you two assholes are together. You always have each other's backs.”

Ian grinned, “Well, technically I have his,” he winked. Mickey laughed into his hand and Fiona’s cheeks turned pink and she rolled her eyes.

“Asshole. You're back together then?”

“Yes,” Mickey said it a little louder than he intended and answered so quickly Ian and Fiona both chuckled.

“Good. Quit breaking up. It's fucked up but this is the healthiest relationship of any of us, Ian. Don't do anything stupid. I don't want either of you doing anything fucking stupid and having to stay here one goddamned day longer than you have to. When you get out, your room will be waiting for you. Both of you.”

“Thanks Fi.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She slid it across the table at Ian.

“Debs asked me to deliver this to you.”

”How’s Frannie?”

“She's good. Really good. They all are. Lip is…Lip. Debbie is working hard. Carl's off doing his military school thing. Liam's doing ok.” She didn’t bother to mention Frank.

“Tell them I love them all, ok?”

“Deal.”

The visit concluded a short time later, Mickey didn’t have much to say but he appreciated her asking to see them both. Fiona cried again when they hugged goodbye. She hugged Mickey around the neck and whispered in his ear.

“You might not have our name, but you’re a Gallagher. Take care of him for me, I’m counting on you.”

Mickey smiled and assured her that he would. They were both searched after the visit and the guard attempted to confiscate the note from Debbie.

"Please, it's from my kid sister. Can I just read it before you take it?"

With a conflicted expression, the guard opened the note and read it. He handed it to Ian and told him to get dressed.

"Tell your sister to buy some stamps. I'm only making this exception once."

"Thank you."

Ian read the brief note while he waited for Mickey in the hallway.

Ian,

Hey bro. Hope you're doing ok. They won't let me visit you until I'm 16 so I decided last night that I'm going to come see you on my birthday. Everybody's doing ok but we miss you. Fiona told me that Mickey is your ~~roommate~~  cellmate - how the hell did that happen? Tell him I said hey. Be safe.

Love, Debbie

PS - I took a blanket off your bed and put it in Frannie's crib. She misses you a lot.

He sniffled and folded the note. Mickey saw him wiping his eyes when he stepped out of the changing room. He rubbed Ian's back.

"Don't let these fucks see you cry, Ian."

He took a deep breath and composed himself. Mickey squeezed his hand and they walked back to the common area together.

The next day after breakfast, they were getting ready to head to work detail when a CO stopped Mickey.

“Yeah? What’s going on?”

“You signed up for the kitchen job. The selection committee wants to talk to you.”

Ian’s forehead creased and he tightened his jaw – Mickey hadn’t breathed a word about it to him. Why wouldn’t he tell him that he wanted to change his work detail? Now they’d be apart all day...

“Oh. Well – I got infirmary duty now -” Mickey told the guard, who shook his head and looked at the clipboard in front of him.

“You'll report to your detail after the committee excuses you. Gallagher, the hell are you staring at? Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Ian gave Mickey a glare and Mickey’s eyes flashed with blue flames.

“Yes, sir.”

“Ian, I - “

“This way, Milkovich. Gallagher can get along just fine without you. On your way, Gallagher.”

Ian actively avoided Mickey’s eyes as he joined the other inmates heading off to their work assignments.

Mickey swallowed hard. He hadn’t intended to keep it a complete secret but one look at Ian’s face told him this day was going to end in an argument.

Mickey was led into a small conference room and swallowed the lump in his throat, nervously licking his parched lips. There were three people he'd never seen before sitting at the far end of the table with manila file folders in front of them. The two men didn’t look up as he entered, one had a full head of black hair and the other was bald.

They wore stern expressions and were looking through the stack of documents. The woman sitting between them gave him a small smile as he sat down.

“Good Morning,” she greeted him. The two men finally took notice that Mickey had entered.

“Morning,” Mickey coughed into his fist to clear the nerves out of his throat.

“You’re Mik- Mik..heil - Mik..hail...”

“Mickey is fine. Um. Ma’am.”

She nodded in gratitude. The man on her right spoke, his deep voice took Mickey slightly off his guard.

“That Russian? Your name? It sounds Russian.”

“Uh, yes Sir,” he cleared his throat again.

“This won’t take long, Milkovich;” the balding man spoke. He mispronounced Mickey’s last name, putting the emphasis on the K sound; mil- _Kovich_. Mickey didn’t correct him.

“Why do you want to take part in this program?” Deep Voice asked.

Mickey wished his mouth wasn’t so dry but he was afraid they’d see his hand shake with nerves if he attempted to pour himself a glass of water from the carafe on the table.

“It seems like a good opportunity,” his throat felt like sandpaper.

“Care to elaborate?” The woman asked with a smirk. Mickey thought carefully.

“I don’t want to come back here. I want to do my bit and get out. I ain’t got many options for work when that happens, so I figured why not learn something useful,” he shrugged.

“Pity you’re just learning how much it sucks in here now, Milkovich;” Baldy said, gesturing to the folder on the table. “I see this isn’t your first incarceration. You probably had plenty of police contact as a minor as well.”

Mickey nodded, “Yeah. I’ve been in trouble my whole life,” he said dejectedly looking at his folded hands on the table, making an attempt to hide the tattoos on his knuckles.

“But, I don’t want to end up like my father and my uncles.”

Deep Voice raised his head, “Terry? Your father is Terry Milkovich?”

Mickey rolled his lips inward and bit down as he nodded. Deep Voice quietly whispered to the other two. The woman in the middle held up her hand, asking him to be quiet before she addressed Mickey.

“Do you have any experience working in a kitchen?”

“Not in a restaurant or anything but I can cook. If I didn’t cook when my father was in the can, we didn’t eat,” Mickey offered hopefully. He was going to add that the Mexican cartel was using several restaurants to launder money and Mickey had learned three different ways to castrate someone with kitchen equipment; but he thought better of it.

“What makes you think we’re going to let you anywhere near this program? You didn’t finish even a single year of high school. This is a very expensive experimental initiative Milkovich – we aren’t going to waste federal funding on someone who’s just going to reoffend and wind up back here again.” Baldy said with a hostile growl.

Mickey’s nostrils flared as he grit his teeth and he didn’t answer.

“How did you injure your hand?” Deep Voice said with an infuriating smirk.

“Punched a wall,” Mickey said in a whisper.

“Ok, I think we’re all set here,” the woman said as she assembled the stack of papers and tapped them on the table. Deep Voice pressed a button that alerted the guard that it was time to bring in the next candidate.

Mickey looked down again. He knew he shouldn’t have bothered with this nonsense.

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to ask me?” Mickey felt his pulse start to race.

Baldy raised an eyebrow at him. “Milkovich, this program is for inmates who are going to be rehabilitated and never set foot inside a prison again. Men who have something on the outside that they need to stay out for. Wives, children. You’re a high school drop out with no prospects – probably going right back into your old habits as soon as you walk out of the gates and you’ll walk right back in again.”

Mickey crossed his arms aggressively and gnawed on the inside of his cheek. The CO entered the room and motioned for Mickey to follow him out. Mickey turned back to the table.

“This is bullshit,” he growled at them.

“Excuse me!” The woman started to admonish him but Mickey was on a roll.

“I’m second-generation piece of South Side garbage with no diploma or prospects so you ain’t gotta do shit to keep me out of jail? I might not be a fuckin’ upstanding citizen or whatever but I worked my ass off at everything I’ve ever did – I worked a lot harder than anyone else in my family. I ran drugs, I ran guns, I had 12 fuckin’ hand whores working for me when I was 19 years old. Because I fuckin’ had to. I had responsibilities that needed to be met and no resources. I took care of my whore ex-wife and my son. I took care of my partner when he got sick. Chased his crazy ass all over Chicago, doing all kinds of shit to keep him from going off the deep end. I’m never fucking coming back here again. Maybe I’m not going to get a cushy state job and get to fuck with people’s lives all day, but if for no other reason than to prove your fuckin ass wrong, I’m going to make something of myself.”

He felt passionate tears getting ready to well up but he choked them back. The committee members looked at each other and shared a few quiet words. Mickey tried to eavesdrop but the blood was pounding in his ears, rendering him temporarily deaf.

The CO grabbed his upper arm and pulled him out of the room. Mickey thought quickly and kicked the door shut behind him before he was brought to the infirmary. He scanned the room and saw Ian looking at him but he looked away quickly. He was restocking the Nitrile gloves in the supply cabinet.

“Hey. Um, need any help?”

Ian ignored him.

“Hey - Carrot Top, you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Fine. I’ll just go fuck myself then,” Mickey said under his breath.

“Yeah, you do that,” Ian spat at him without turning around. He ignored Mickey for the rest of their shift and they didn’t speak again until after lights out when they were forced into close proximity while locked in their cell. Mickey sat on his bunk, Ian sat at the small desk they shared, glaring at each other.

“You done not talking to me yet?”

“Dunno - you planning on explaining why you didn’t tell me you wanted out of the infirmary?”

Mickey rolled his eyes, which judging by Ian’s response, was not a great idea.

“Fuck you, Mick.”

“Oh come on Gallagher – why you gotta be such a little bitch about it? Do you need me to check in with you every time I take a shit now? I don’t owe you an explanation for every little thing that I do.”

“This isn’t ‘every little thing’ Mick – were you just gonna not show up to the infirmary one day and let me figure it out on my own?”

“No.”

“Then when were you gonna tell me?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you if I got rejected. I honestly thought you’d be excited for me. Guess I was fuckin wrong about that – cuz stupid me – I forgot that only your shit is important in this relationship.”

”Why do you want to get away from me?” Ian asked with pain in his eyes.

Mickey wet his lower lip before he spoke, “Gallagher, I'd ask if you were fuckin nuts but that'd be a rhetorical fuckin question, wouldn't it?”

“Well why leave the infirmary then? It's easy. And we have what, five cigarettes left in the pack to smoke on the loading dock on delivery days.”

Mickey wouldn't look at him. He pressed himself against the wall, looking like he wished he could be a million miles away.

“Mick, listen -"

“No. You fuckin listen.” Mickey approached him with a finger thrust against Ian's sternum.

“If we're gonna have this “normal” little life you want so bad, I'm gonna need a way to pay the bills that won't land me back in here again. Restaurants don't do background checks.” He ran his hand through his hair. Ian watched the rage on Mickey's face ease into sincerity.

“I thought that maybe when I got out of here, if I had a marketable skill I wouldn't have to go back to dealing. Well, not exclusively. Maybe I won't ever be fuckin – what’s his name? The angry English guy on TV. He's always yelling at people…”

“Gordon Ramsay.”

“Yeah him. Maybe I won't be Gordon Ramsay but I could support us working in a kitchen. I know we're gonna be crashing at Fiona's house for a bit but I meant what I said about leaving Chicago and having a fresh start with you. Do you really want to live with your sister for the rest of your life? Do you want us to sleep in the same room, in the same bed you've slept in since you were what, six?”

Ian exhaled and raked his fingernails against his scalp.

“Seven,” he sighed. “I shared a bed with Lip until I was seven.”

Mickey wrapped his arms around his waist. Ian melted into him and Mickey's hand lovingly stroked the back of his head against his shoulder.

“What am I gonna do?”

Mickey kissed his temple.

“You’re an EMT, be an EMT again. Go save lives and come home to me.” Ian scoffed and pulled away.

“Yeah ok. I lied on my application, I didn't disclose having Bipolar Disorder. I shouldn't have even gotten hired in the first place. Now, I'll have to lie twice. If they don't find out about my diagnosis, they'll see a fucking felony conviction and still won't hire me.”

Mickey carefully approached him and intertwined their fingers. He kissed Ian's mouth sweetly.

“So lie. They won't find out about the bipolar if you're regularly taking your meds and we'll get you a new social security number so they won't see the felony. You've got to do a little wrong to do a little right sometimes, Ian.”

Ian pressed his lips to Mickey's forehead and exhaled deeply.

“I'm sorry.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too Mick.”

“So…how about a blowjob?” He raised a mischievous eyebrow, which Ian aped.

“Are you asking for one or offering?”

“Both. But I'll go first, if you want.” Mickey kissed him passionately while he walked Ian back to his bunk.

He pushed him down by his shoulders and sank to his knees in front of him. He made a desperate, hungry moaning sound as their tongues lapped at each other.

He maintained eye contact as he pulled Ian’s half-hard cock out. He looked up at him through his long, dark lashes as he traced his tongue around the head.

“You can always hurt yourself with a knife and come visit me in the infirmary.” Ian conceded just before Mickey took most of his length between his lips.


	4. Chapter 4

Ian fisted the scratchy steel wool-like blanket with one hand and kept the other on Mickey’s shoulder. His rhythmic, breathy moaning bounced off the walls. His eyes were locked on the back of Mickey's head as it bobbed up and down.

Mickey was the only one who ever came close to getting this much of Ian's dick into his mouth. He sucked and slurped like his life depended on it. He moaned hungrily, changing speed and intensity. Ian felt him start to choke when his gag reflex kicked in from time to time but that only seemed to make Mickey more determined; the sound of him choking made Ian more desirous.

“Holy fuck…holy fuck, Mick…stop…” he dug his fingertips into Mickey's deltoid.

Mickey spat him out and looked up, saliva and precum glistening on his chin. His lips were plump, engorged with blood; Mickey had amazing cock sucking lips.

“Stop? What’s wrong?”

“Ride me.”

“Do fuckin’ what?”

Ian took hold of Mickey’s throat and squeezed, “I said ‘ride me’, bitch.”

The air was sucked out of Mickey’s lungs and he bit his bottom lip when Ian let him go. He rocked backwards on his heels until he was sitting on the cold, hard floor of the cell.

Ian smirked and stood up slowly. His skin erupted in gooseflesh when his jumpsuit and boxers fell around his ankles. He watched Mickey, apparently frozen in place. He wet his lips in anticipation when Ian lifted the white t-shirt over his head.

Mickey’s eyes scanned all over Ian’s chest, unable to decide where he wanted to plant his mouth first. He watched with wide eyes as Ian ran his fist from the base of his dick all the way to the tip, swirled around the head and back down again.

_Jesus Christ. I get to fuck this guy...completely worth being in jail._

The first time, Mickey hadn’t seen how big Ian was before he was on all fours on the bed with the top of his head being slammed into the headboard. It was, by far, the best fuck of his life up until that point. He didn’t want to seem like some weak twink, but until he adjusted to it, it felt like Ian was going to split him in two; it was fucking fantastic. After that first time, Ian had ruined all other cocks for him. Mickey craved it, he needed it. He was topping one or two other guys at the time and occasionally there were girls (you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do), but from that first day forward, no piece of ass compared to Ian Gallagher.

His breathing all but stopped when Ian dropped to his knees and began to crawl close to him. His heart thumped against his ribcage. He awaited Ian's mouth with growing anticipation but he diverted to Mickey’s neck. He squeezed his eyes closed when he felt his hot breath tickling his skin. Ian’s tongue swept from behind his lobe into his ear.

“Something wrong with your hearing?” He purred and lightly nipped at Mickey’s neck.

“Strip.”

Ian’s hands pulled Mickey’s jumpsuit open and worked the sleeves down his arms. Their mouths met furiously over and over again when Mickey suddenly seemed to remember how to move. He slithered out of the jumpsuit and boxers. Ian pulled the t-shirt up over his head.

“You want me on top?” Mickey asked biting his lower lip.

Ian nodded and sat back on the cold concrete floor with that infuriatingly irresistible smirk on his freckled face. Mickey had a hard exterior; a short fuse, a big mouth and never backed down from a fight. However, when Ian looked at him like that, he was left completely helpless. Ian had that power over him; he could cut right through Mickey’s defenses and get directly to his gooey center.

Mickey felt the sweat bead up on his forehead. This was a first; Ian wanted to fuck face to face sometimes but never like this before. He pretended not to like it but they both knew that was bullshit.

Mickey wiped his sweaty, nervous hands on the back of his thighs before he straddled Ian and dropped to his knees over him. Ian lined himself up and sucked on his bottom lip as Mickey pushed his weight down. A moan left Mickey's throat that set Ian's senses on fire. With no manual preparation and only the residue of Mickey’s saliva for prep, there was more resistance from his body than normal. The alabaster skin of his chest and shoulders blushed over pink.

The sensation was very different from this angle, he felt Ian fill and stretch him. They locked their fingers together and Mickey began to slowly rock his hips and shifted up and down with his legs. Ian thrusted upward slowly, never taking his eyes off of Mickey’s facial expression as it danced a fine line between pain and ecstasy. Mickey pressed both of his palms flat on Ian’s chest and used him for leverage; he bucked harder. He wrapped his fingers around his throbbing shaft but Ian slapped his hand away.

It was a bigger turn on than Ian expected it to be. He put his hands behind his head and relished every second of watching Mickey gyrate on top of him. He felt his hole tighten up around him whenever his cock collided with his sweet spot. Mickey’s cock bobbed frustratingly far from Ian’s mouth.

Trevor liked it like this, (not that Mick ever needed to know that). On more than one occasion, Ian had closed his eyes and imagined Mickey in Trevor’s place. He always felt guilty about it afterwards but as good as he had it with Trevor, as compatible as they were and as much fun as they had together; Trevor would always come up short in one unquestionably important area. There was one glaring deficiency Ian would never be able to completely overlook: Trevor wasn’t Mickey.

It was as simple as that.

“Ian...Ian... can...I...?”

Mickey could barely get the words out but Ian narrowed his stare and shook his head. Mickey moaned in frustration; Ian wasn’t letting him jerk off yet and he took great pleasure in denying him the gratification he needed. He rode Ian harder in response; making every effort to ensure that his cock was never too far from his g-spot. If he couldn’t touch himself, he’d get off another way.

He got his balance and leaned backward, bracing himself on Ian’s thighs. Droplets of precum splattered on his stomach.

“Oh, fuck...yes...fuck...”

“Turn over,” Ian demanded.

Pleading flooded Mickey’s blue eyes for a moment. He didn’t want to be bereft of Ian’s body for any period of time and he was so close. He gasped as the feeling of Ian deep inside him was pulled away. He spun around in a plank position and dropped to his stomach. Ian was back inside him in a flash. He braced himself with a hand on the metal frame that held up his mattress. A sharp piece of a bedspring dug into his palm.

Ian started to pump his hips hard and Mickey bucked back into him. The sound of Ian's hand slapping his ass registered before the pain did.

“This is mine...you’re fucking mine...”

He pushed Mickey's legs further apart and pulled his hips backward. Mickey leaned on his forearms and didn’t miss a beat, he rocked back to meet Ian's thrusts. Ian scratched down Mickey’s back and watched his skin turn pink in the wake of his nails. Mickey decided not to ask permission again. He needed to cum and if Ian wanted to punish him for it, all the better. While Ian proceeded to fuck him into the floor, Mickey jerked his cock until he exploded.

“Aaah fuck...I’m gonna...”

His legs started to shake and his vision blurred at the perimeter when he finally went over the edge and he was still riding the sensations out when Ian's lust came to its own conclusion. He loved the way Mickey's body quaked hard just before he came.

Mickey flopped forward, resting his forehead on his arm and tried to catch his breath. Ian slipped out of him and he nudged his shoulder backward until he was laying on his side. Mickey cupped his cheek and pulled him in for a kiss that was softer and sweeter than Ian was expecting. He traced Ian’s jawline with his finger, looking thoughtful.

“We never went on that date.”

“Hmm?” Ian wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

“The night those MPs came for you. Remember?”

Ian pursed his lips together. Much of that day was clear in his memory. They got into a bloody fistfight at the high school, had absolutely mind-blowing make-up sex under the bleachers, and he got completely shitfaced off of one beer (thank you, Lithium). They had planned on going on their first real date. Dinner and conversation; in public, at a restaurant. And then the plan was to go home and bang all night. Just like in the movies. Unfortunately for them both, fucking Sammi had turned Ian in to the Army and he was dragged away in handcuffs, facing a possible court martial.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“They took you away,” Mickey set his jaw and exhaled hard. He fought with everything he had to try to help Ian but was held off at gunpoint, unable to do anything other than helplessly watch his boyfriend being pinned down and cuffed before they dragged him out to the car.

“Then when you were released, you disappeared with your mom, and then...”

“I know. You don’t need to say it,” Ian swallowed a deep regret before speaking again.

“We were going to go to Sizzler.”

“That's the first thing we're doing when I get out. Pick me up at the gate, fuck me stupid and then we're getting steaks,” Mickey ran his broken hand over his disappointed stomach.

Ian nodded his agreement. He would be getting out a few months before Mickey and was not looking forward to that. As much as he wanted out of the joint, the thought of walking out a free man and leaving Mickey behind for even one day was enough to make him break out in hives. Forced separation was an ongoing theme in their relationship and he really hated it.

He looked at Mickey and a sullen expression painted his face. There was a distinct pinkness around his eyes that stood out like a beacon against his pale skin.

Ian tilted his head, questioning. “What? What's wrong?”

“You don’t know how many restaurant tables I sat at by myself, missing you. You said you dreamed about me. I'd straight up fuckin' hallucinate you. I'd see a tall redhead out the corner of my eye and I'd feel like I was gonna fuckin’ die when I realized it wasn't you. Do you know how many gringo redheads there are in Mexico? Not many, Ian. I probably saw every one of them.”

Ian smiled at him. The man he was head over heels hopelessly in love with so easily walked the delicate line between crude caveman and knight on a white horse. Mickey was imperfectly perfect.

“Mick, I'm s-"

“You're sorry. Yeah I know. I'm sorry I let you dump me,” he said bitterly.

Ian frowned and looked away. He knew so much of Mickey's pain stemmed from his actions. He'd cheated, he'd lied, he went off his meds and did stupid, reckless, crazy shit. He had been so selfish and Mickey deserved better; much, much better.

“I know it wasn't you who did that. The bipolar asshole that took up residence in my Ian's brain dumped me.”

_‘My Ian.’ Say that shit again, please._

Funny how being trapped in a small room with someone made these conversations so much easier to have.

“Mick, you did everything you could to help me. Yeah, you were a little overbearing but -"

“I should have fought for us. Shit, I fought plenty in my life but the one thing that meant more to me than anything else and I pussied out.”

Ian kissed him, “Mick, I was lost, I was confused - Monica said -”

“I should have said yes.”

Ian stopped cold, “Yes to what?”

Mickey got up and sat on his bunk, Ian followed suit.

“You asked me if we were gonna go to City Hall and get married. I know you were being sarcastic but I should have said yes.”

The first time didn't mean anything. He was forced to marry Svetlana. This would have been different. Ian remembered what Mickey had said to him and it rang in his ears.

_It means we take care of each other. Good times and bad, in sickness and health, all that shit._

Finding his mouth suddenly dry, Ian looked down at his hands.

“You don’t mean that.”

“The fuck I don’t. If that’s what it would have taken to keep you with me, to prove that I was down for you and that I’m in this for life...believe me, Ian. I would have done it in a heartbeat. To be honest, I thought about it a lot when you were off doing god-knows-what with your mother. I want to be with your crazy ass forever.”

Ian fought the urge to smile, Mickey was just saying shit he didn’t mean.

“You don’t believe in marriage and shit like that. It’s for straight people.”

Mickey interlaced their fingers and nudged Ian’s cheek with his nose.

“Ian. I love you. If you had said that you wanted to get married, if you _ever_ want to get married...I just want to be with you. If you want the piece of paper, we’ll get the fuckin’ piece of paper.”

Now Ian was physically incapable of hiding the smile that spread across his face.

“Well, you do look pretty damn good in a tuxedo,” Ian smirked and Mickey rolled his eyes as he got up and picked up their clothes.

“Mick?”

“Yeah?”

“Did we just get engaged?” Ian pulled on his boxers and winked at him.

“Gallagher, if you have to ask me that question, the answer is obviously ‘no’.”

They redressed and curled up together on Ian’s bunk. Ian tucked his nose into the crook of Mickey’s neck and inhaled.

“What are you doing?” Mickey asked with his eyes closed, he shifted his back a little closer to Ian’s chest.

“Smelling you.”

“You saying I need a shower, Ginger?”

“Nope. If you could actually avoid washing this particular spot, I’d prefer that.”

“You’re fuckin’ weird.”

They both chuckled softly. A few minutes went by and Mickey’s fingers caressed Ian’s arm.

“You awake back there?” Mickey asked sotto voce, Ian made a quiet but affirmative grunt.

“Do you want to get married?”

Mickey could suddenly feel Ian’s heart beating against his back.

“I might,” Ian nuzzled into his neck again, very grateful that Mickey wasn’t able to see the stupid-happy look on his face.

“K.”

A couple of days later, the cast came off Mickey’s hand. Ian was secretly delighted and had been counting down the days because it was getting pretty rank.

Mickey stretched his fingers out wide and clenched his fist a few times. He cracked his knuckles and the doctor grimaced.

“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to do that?” She asked with a hand on her hip.

“Doc, I’m in jail – I clearly do a lot of things I’m not supposed to do,” Mickey joked.

“Touche, Milkovich. Now don’t forget in the battle of man versus brick wall, the brick wall is going to win every time.”

“Got it. Thanks.” Mickey hopped off the gurney and was holding his hands together, comparing them when he heard a guard call his name.

“Milkovich!”

Mickey looked up and saw the guard waving him over, he approached cautiously.

“Yeah?”

“You’re wanted in the cafeteria,” the guard said, looking at a clipboard.

“For what?”

“Well it looks like you were selected for the kitchen program. You’re late. I’d go before they change their minds.”

Mickey’s eyes opened wide and he wet his lips. He raced quickly to the commissary cage, thankfully there wasn’t a line.

“Hey Milkovich. Ramen noodles and Sprite, right?” Daniels adjusted the glasses on the tip of his nose.

“Not today, man. Do you have any notebooks? A pad, something?” Mickey attempted to look on the shelves in the cage for what he wanted.

“Um, yeah sure.” Daniels stepped backward and found what he was looking for. He slid a black and white Composition book at Mickey across the counter.

“Ten bucks.”

“ _Ten bucks?_ ” Mickey said, surprised. “It’s only got like, 80 pages in it. Can’t we get these things at the fuckin Dollar Tree?”

“This ain’t the Dollar Tree, Milkovich,” Daniels laughed.

Mickey groaned, his commissary account was running low; Fiona had taken some pity on him and put money on his books when she put some on Ian’s.

“Fine, yeah. Gimme it.” Daniels marked the purchase down on his clipboard. He looked over his shoulder and took a pen out of the wire cup and tapped it on the countertop. He covertly handed it to Mickey.

“Don’t say I never gave you nothin.”

“Thanks.”

Mickey tucked the pen behind his ear, grabbed the notebook and jogged toward the cafeteria. Five inmates turned and looked in the direction of the creaky door opening and shutting behind him.

Someone was speaking in front of all of them and he stopped, waiting impatiently for Mickey to take his seat.

“Nice of you to join us, um,” he looked down at a piece of paper.

“Milkovich, is it?”

“Sorry,” Mickey took the only empty chair.

“I was getting my cast off in the infirmary,” he waved his hand, wiggling his fingers.

“Fine,” he went on explaining food safety procedures and Mickey struggled to keep up writing notes.

  * Cook, Separate, Clean, Chill.
  * 160 – 165 degrees to kill bacteria
  * Keep cooked/uncooked separate
  * WASH HANDS – cross contamination



“You getting all of this, Milkovich?”

Mickey looked up, embarrassed. The instructor had crossed his arms over his chest and was smirking at him.

“Milkovich is apparently the only one taking this shit seriously, gentlemen. These are the basics – and if you forget them, you could quite literally kill someone.”

Mickey exhaled and grinned appreciatively. The rest of that day’s kitchen safety lecture wasn’t exactly enlightening –

_Who the fuck would put water on a grease fire?_

But Mickey left the cafeteria feeling positive. He was taking the first step towards building a trouble-free future with Ian, all he had to do was not fuck up.

Ian was writing a letter at the desk in their cell when Mickey returned. Mickey massaged Ian’s shoulders with both hands until Ian put his pen down. He turned his head towards his newly healed hand and kissed the forefinger.

“How’s it feel?”

“Good as new,” Mickey playfully tapped Ian’s cheek. Mickey dropped the notebook and pen on the desk and kissed Ian's mouth before he plopped down on his bunk. Ian saw a secret hiding behind his eyes.

“Where the hell have you been all day?”

Mickey chuckled, “Are you still gonna love me when I come home smelling like a grease trap?”

Ian cocked his head before he understood, his eyes lit up.

“You got it?”

“Yep.”

What a relief. Mickey was right, a restaurant job would be one of the few legal things he could do without a high school diploma or a background check.

“I'm…I'm really proud of you, Mick.”

Those words weren't something Mickey was used to hearing from anybody. Hearing them from Ian made him roll his eyes and smile like a jackass.

Everything in the cafeteria went more or less smoothly for a while. Mickey kept up with his notebook, diligently taking notes. Ian teased him that if he'd paid that much attention to teachers at school, he might have graduated.

They finally got access to the actual kitchen and the instructor had a display of knives laid out.

“Anybody good with these?”

All hands went up.

“In the kitchen?”

Most hands went down.

Only Mickey and one other, some Spanish guy he’d never seen before, kept theirs up. Mickey raised an eyebrow and turned a little red. The instructor nodded and proceeded to explain the specific uses of each knife.

Paring knife, utility knife, chef’s knife, bread knife...

“Use the right tool for the job, use it carefully and it’ll save you time and energy.” He demonstrated the proper way of holding each knife and gave everyone a chance to try them. The guards moved in closer, just in case.

“All of the knives in this kitchen are tagged and locked up, Gentlemen. If one goes missing, trust me you’ll all regret it,” the supervising CO told them.

“Not bad, Milkovich. Not bad at all,” the instructor observed Mickey tucking his fingers into a claw while he practiced chopping the celery stalks they were given.

He had figured that technique out the hard way. He had nearly chopped the tip of his middle finger off when he was cutting up romaine hearts at his grandmother’s house when he was a kid.

 _“Layno, Mikhailo - budʹte oberezhni!”_ she wrapped his finger in a wet towel and squeezed it hard until the bleeding stopped.

“ _Baba,_ it fucking hurts!” Nine-year-old Mickey cried.

She smacked him in the back of the head for swearing.

_“Ne kazhy tsʹoho!"_

Baba didn’t speak a whole lot of English, but she sure as shit understood a lot more than she let on.

He got more than a few slaps from Terry later that night; cooking was women’s work.

“Women and faggots!” his father taunted him. “It serves you right, nearly lopping your goddamned finger off. Maybe I’ll get you a pretty pink fuckin apron.”

Before the accident, his mother would normally have interceded and kept his father from beating him too hard. Before the accident, Oleksandra Milkovich could assuage her husband’s vicious temper. After the accident, when she spent most of her time in bed high off her tits from painkillers, she was no help. Terry beat all of his sons regularly and hard for any number of real or imagined transgressions.

At the end of the day, Mickey checked his knife back in and the CO padded him down to make sure he hadn’t swiped anything. They were all about to leave when the instructor asked him to stay behind.

“I do something wrong?”

“No, not at all. Quite the contrary, actually. You’re doing a good job. Stick with it, Mickey.”

The praise made Mickey stand a little taller but didn’t let his face betray him.

“If you can learn to control that hair-trigger temper you’ve got, you’ll really have something. Do you have a girl on the outside waiting for you?”

Mickey narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t used to someone without an ulterior motive being nice to him.

“Nah, no girls for me,” he said with a dismissive wave of his arms. He glanced over his shoulder at the exit, anxious to get back to Ian.

“Go on. See you tomorrow.”

Mickey double-timed it back to his cell and found Ian laying on his bunk, facing the wall.

“Hey, I’m back. You good?” He stood on his bunk and rubbed Ian’s arm. He heard him exhale and he rolled onto his back.

“What the fuck?!”

Ian had a black eye and a split lip.

“It looks worse than it is,” Ian avoided eye contact.

“Who did it? I’ll rip his fuckin balls off and make him eat them.”

Ian laughed but groaned in pain and held his nose with both hands. Mickey climbed up on the bunk and turned Ian’s face gently toward him.

“You gonna tell me, or do I gotta get it out of you the hard way?”

“It’s nothing, really.”

“If it’s nothing, then you can tell me.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Do I gotta make both of your eyes match before you tell me?”

Ian explained that two inmates who had a long-standing beef got into a fight when they were both in the infirmary at the same time. Ian was the unlucky one to get caught in the middle when one attacked the other.

Mickey’s blind rage gave way to feelings of guilt.

“Stop,” Ian swatted his hand at Mickey’s chest.

“Stop what?”

“I can hear what you’re thinking. You're thinking if you had stayed in the infirmary, you could have done something to protect me or whatever. I'm a big boy, Mick. It's not the first black eye I’ve ever got. I can take care of myself.”

Mickey grunted. That was exactly what he'd been thinking; If he was there, he could have pulled Ian out of the way. He ran his fingers through Ian's hair and kissed his forehead.

“You sure you’re ok?” Mickey asked, resenting himself for having a good day.

“They checked me out, I’m fine. My nose isn't broken. No need for you to get how you get,” Ian pulled him in for a kiss. When their mouths came apart, Mickey began caressing Ian’s cheek with their foreheads pressed together. He was still feeling guilty.

“Promise me you aren’t going to do something crazy,” Ian whispered in between chaste kisses.

Mickey smirked. “Crazy is your specialty, not mine Freckle Juice. I’m just protective.”

“Protective? Is that what you call kicking the shit out of Ned in the middle of the street that time?” Ian cupped Mickey’s cheek and deepened a kiss.

“Ned? That saggy-balled doctor guy, right? Nah. I kicked his ass out of jealousy, I’m man enough to admit it. Can you blame me?” Mickey interlaced their fingers.

Ian laughed and kissed him again. “It got you to kiss me the first time. I’ll never blame you for that.”

They lost track of how long they stayed there laying on Ian’s bunk. The words “cuddle” and “snuggle” were anathema to Mickey but doing those things with Ian were among some of his favorite pastimes. They'd spent so much time apart, getting to feel Ian's warm skin under his fingertips again was like a dream he didn't ever want to wake up from. Ian sounded sleepy when he finally spoke.

“You got a letter. It's on the desk. Looks official,” Ian tilted his chin up with his finger and kissed his mouth.

Mickey jumped down, found the letter and flopped down on his own bunk to read it. He saw his name scrawled in unfamiliar handwriting and he flipped it over. There was a printed return address on the stationary but no name. He ripped the envelope open and began to read.

“You’ve got to be motherfucking kidding me…”

Ian dropped his head over the edge of his bed.

“What's up?"

Mickey's face was again red with rage. He didn't speak when he handed the letter to Ian. As he read, Ian's jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

A lawyer in Madison, Wisconsin was requesting that Mickey take a DNA test to determine the paternity of Yevgeny. Svetlana's new husband wanted to adopt the boy and in order to do that, his biological father had to sign his rights over. Before that happened, the biological father had to be identified with DNA.

“I don't understand. Yevy is yours. I mean, isn't he? He was starting to sorta look like you," he handed the letter back to Mickey.

He had a fist clenched and was squeezing his eyes shut. He was trying with all his might not to break his hand against another wall. The suspicion had always been there. Svetlana was a whore, after all. She could have gotten pregnant by just about anyone. Mickey didn't want anything to do with the kid at first but…

_Goddamn. That lying slut swore up and down he was mine._

“Mick?”

Mickey crumpled the letter up and threw it over his shoulder. He shut down completely and didn’t speak or move from his bunk until the next morning. Ian tried several times to talk to him but he saw eventually that it was no use. The only thing left to do was to curl up on the bunk behind him and hold his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more Ukrainian (please correct my grammar if you know better than I!)
> 
> bud'te oberezhni - be careful
> 
> Baba - Grandmother (the actual word is Babusya but Baba is more of a term of endearment like Nana or Grandma)
> 
> ne kazhy tsʹoho - don't say that


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next two weeks, whenever Ian tried to subtly bring Yevgeny up into conversation, Mickey’s entire demeanor would change. He’d stiffen up, his face took on his ‘I’m so angry, I could cry’ expression and he’d say the same thing:

“I don’t want to talk about it, Ian.”

After some loving but persistent persuasion, he finally called the lawyer.

“Taft and McNally, Judy speaking, how may I direct your call?”

“Yeah, um – I got a letter. My ex-wife wants me to sign over custody of our son, erm, her son, he might not be mine...”

Ian stood beside him; partially for moral support, partially to keep him from punching something. Judy the receptionist transferred the call to a paralegal, who asked for Mickey’s name.

“Mickey - erm. Mikhailo Milkovich.”

“Thank you, and the mother’s name? The file would be under her name.”

Mickey clenched his jaw. He couldn’t even think about her without spitting on the floor.

“Svetlana Yevgenivna. My son is Yevgeny Milkovich.”

Ian knew Mickey well enough to be able to spot the sadness in his eyes. He leaned in a little closer to listen.

“Oh yes, of course! Such a sweet boy, she always brings him in with her.”

He saw the vein in Mickey’s forehead start to throb.

“Whatever. So what am I supposed to do now? What’s the process?”

“Well sir, you’d have to come in...”

“That’s gonna be a problem.”

“Oh, are you out of state?”

“You can say that. I’m locked up in Chicago.”

She clicked her tongue. “Such a shame. Well sadly this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to deal with a case like this. I can have a local lab go to the prison and take your sample to test and we’ll compare the results to the test the boy has already taken. The chain of custody will be thoroughly controlled.”

“My _sample_? I gotta jizz in a cup or something?” Mickey wrinkled up his nose at the idea.

“No, sir.” She cleared her throat. “They'll swab the inside of your mouth to get a few cheek cells, that’s all they need. It’ll be over in a flash.”

Mickey nodded. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Alright then. I’ll just need some information first and I’ll get it set up. Someone could be out to you within the month.”

Mickey relayed to her where he was incarcerated and his prison number. She said the attorney would contact the warden and they’d set it up for him.

“I love him,” Mickey said after a brief pause.

“Excuse me?”

“Yevgeny. My son. I...I love him.”

“Yes sir, I’m sure you do.”

They hung up and Mickey coughed the tears from his eyes. He cracked his knuckles and didn’t look back at Ian before he walked away from the bank of phones.

He went right back to avoiding any and all discussion about Yevgeny and Svetlana. At breakfast the next morning, Ian wouldn’t let it go.

“Why won’t you talk about it? To me? Mick – come on. If you can’t talk to me about it, who can you talk to?”

Mickey slammed his fist down on the table, his cup of water spilled.

“Why do I have to talk about it? Why?! It is what it fucking is, Ian. Whether he’s mine or not – I'm not raising him so who gives a fuck? It’s not like I got a whole lot to offer the kid. It doesn’t fucking matter.”

“Hey! We gonna have a problem?” A CO raised his voice and took three intimidating steps closer to the table.

“Naw, we’re fine,” Ian held his hand up, repentantly. When the CO stepped back, Ian stared at Mickey while he swallowed a sip of coffee. He cleared his throat.

“Mick, if he’s your son, it does matter. What if he comes looking for you someday?”

“Ian, stop pushing me. I’m only going to ask nice once.”

Ian opened his mouth to speak but Mickey was glaring so hard it would have carved a hole in him. He didn’t see that look very often any more, and it made his blood run cold. He finished his coffee and grunted, deciding to back off.

He stood up and lifted his tray from the table.

“Fine. You win. I’ll only say this, try talking to Dr. Sanchez about it. Roll your eyes all you want but try it.”

Mickey didn't make eye contact with Ian as he finished eating. Ian stomped off to throw his trash away and promised himself not to mention it again.

xXx

“So, what's on your mind today?”

Mickey’s knee bounced nervously. He looked down at the scuffed toes of his boots and didn’t make any effort to acknowledge Dr. Sanchez’s presence.

“Ok, new tactic,” she said patiently. “I was pretty surprised to see your name in my appointment calendar. I almost checked to see if it was some kind of mistake but then...” her voice trailed off and had its intended effect – Mickey looked up.

“But then what?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “But then Ian came to see me.”

“Oh, and naturally Chatty Cathy Ian Gallagher told you everything,” Mickey said without trying to hide the resentment in his tone.

Dr. Sanchez wrote something down on her notepad before she spoke again.

“No, he actually didn’t tell me anything. All he did say is that he was worried about you and hoped you’d come in to see me and have a chat.”

A chat. It sounded so quaint. The word didn’t begin to describe the inner turmoil Mickey felt at the very idea of therapy. Sure, Ian got something out of it other than fast food and cigarettes but Ian needed it. He was crazy, after all.

And Mickey wasn’t. He didn’t need therapy. All he fucking needed was for everyone to leave him the fuck alone while he figured shit out.

“So, at the risk of repeating myself, what’s on your mind Mickey?”

Mickey shifted in his seat again and stared at the wall with his hand casually over his mouth.

“Didn’t that hurt?”

It caught him off-guard.

“What?”

“The tattoos on your fingers, didn’t that hurt?”

Mickey looked down at the F U inked on his pale skin and smirked slightly. “It hurts less when you’re wasted.”

He paused, seeing her smile. “It bleeds more but it hurts less,” He added, grinning at the memory.

He got the idea for the tattoos when he was 14. He swiped a bottle of vodka from his uncle’s bedroom and Mickey drank enough to anesthetize himself. His older cousin Gerbil (so called because of his too-prominent front teeth) had learned how to rig up a rudimentary tattoo needle from his most recent stay in juvie. Mickey bit down on a rawhide bone he found in the kichen cupboard as Gerbil dug the barely sanitized needle into the soft flesh of Mickey’s fingers.

“That makes sense. But mine bled like hell. It hurt a lot. I almost tapped out,” she said casually looking up from her notepad where she had been doodling.

Mickey raised an eyebrow at her and she laughed.

“What? You think because I have degrees on my wall that I’m too precious for body modification?” She challenged him with her own arched brow. Before he could respond, she reached over and opened a window, then pulled a half-full pack of Camels from her purse. Without making any effort to look at him, she lit up and exhaled towards the breeze coming from outside.

Mickey swallowed hard, hoping she would offer the pack to him.

_Shit, I’ll talk a blue streak about anything she wants if she’ll give me one of those..._

She sat in her chair, one leg bent under herself and pulled out an ashtray that had been hidden in a drawer.

He steepled his fingers in his lap and tried not to stare at the pack where it sat on the table but dear god did he want a cigarette.

“Oh, why how rude of me,” she said with a smirk. “Help yourself.”

He didn’t think twice before seizing the box in his hands.

“Just start talking and you can smoke the whole pack if you’d like,” she was twirling the plastic Bic lighter between her fingers; a ‘gotcha’ smile on her lips.

“Fine. Ok. Fine,” Mickey relented and held his hand out for the lighter. She placed it carefully in his palm and sat back, inhaling and exhaling curls of smoke.

“So, I was married. To a Russian whore my father paid to fuck me straight. She got knocked up and I had to marry her.”

Dr. Sanchez blanched.

“I’m sorry – go back. Your father -”

“Paid a Russian whore to fuck me straight. He caught me and Ian, beat the shit out of us and -”

“He caught you and your boyfriend having sex,” she scribbled on her notepad with a speed that made Mickey uneasy.

“Yeah. We got sloppy – it was stupid. We were in the living room when he came home,” Mickey took a deep drag.

“Mickey, you know that’s not ok, right?”

“What isn’t? Sex in the living room?”

She smiled and appeared to be restraining herself from rolling her eyes.

“I will go on the record here – there is _nothing_ wrong with sex in the living room.”

They both laughed before she hardened her expression.

“You said he beat on you? Your father?”

“Nothing new. I tried to protect Ian but he had a gun.”

“Ian had a gun?”

“No, my father. He held us at gunpoint when he called for Svetlana, the...”

“...Russian whore,” they said at the same time.

“And then?” Dr. Sanchez stubbed out her first cigarette and lit another. Mickey did the same and took three slow drags before he continued. He felt the smoke fill every bit of his lungs.

“When she got there, he – my father – pointed the gun at us and made Ian watch.”

The lack of any real emotion in his voice chilled the experienced psychiatrist.

“Mickey, what you’re describing is...”

“Rape. Yeah, I know. So what? I’m fine,” he waved his hand dismissively and wondered how much he could smoke before the CO came to get him.

She surprised him by standing and taking the ashtray with her as she walked back to her desk. She reached into a locked cabinet and pulled out a fifth of vodka. Mickey raised his eyebrows.

_Is this really what therapy is like?_

She rested her cigarette carefully in the ashtray and carried everything back over to him. She twisted the cap open feeling the seal break under the pressure and placed the open bottle in front of him.

“Seriously?”

She raised her chin, giving permission. Mickey’s eyes didn’t leave her face as he took a sip.

“You say you’re fine and I hear you. But, yet...” she gestured with both hands around her. “Look where you are.”

“I’m not in here because of that,” Mickey growled impatiently. He took a longer sip of vodka and sucked air between his teeth.

“I didn’t necessarily mean jail, I meant...where you are in life. It’s clear that you were no Boy Scout Mickey, but do you think that -”

“I’m not gonna talk about it. I don’t care what you offer to me, Doc. I’m not...I can’t.” Mickey looked away and sucked on the cigarette until the paper burned down to the filter. He stubbed it out and crossed his arms defiantly even though he wanted to keep smoking.

“Ok,” she held up her hands in surrender. “Not this time. Why don’t you pick up where you left off then. You got a prostitute pregnant and you married her...”

“Ian and me, well. He begged me not to go through with it. But I had to.”

“You were in the closet.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah. Nobody knew. Except Ian. And my father. And Svetlana. My sister figured it out eventually.”

“That’s a really heavy secret to keep to yourself, Mickey.”

“Mm-hmm,” he relaxed enough to light another cigarette. “So, I got married and Ian took off.”

“That’s when he joined the army?” She said, as if putting the pieces together for the first time. Mickey nodded and took a long sip, the vodka burning him from the inside.

“It...it broke me. I was miserable. I was scared he was gonna get his head shot off in some third-world raghead shithole. I didn’t want him to leave but I didn’t know how to tell him not to.”

She wrote something down. “I can imagine that was very difficult for you.”

Mickey nodded, opened his mouth to speak but he closed it again. He took a drag and exhaled through his nose.

“When Ian came back, he was different. It wasn’t just the bipolar – well, I didn’t know it was bipolar until later, but it was more than that. He was doing drugs, he wasn’t making eye contact, he was selling his ass at that stupid fucking club. It was... it was scary.”

“None of that is particularly surprising. A lot of people living with bipolar disorder exhibit hypersexuality and dabble in illegal drugs.”

“But,” Mickey sighed. “But I loved him. I love him. So, I stuck around to look out for him, you know?”

“Mm-hmm,” she didn’t look up from her note pad.

“When he was sober, having a good day – it was great. Ian stayed at my place until Lana said he had to go, so we both left and went to his place.”

“Why?”

“Why what? Fuck her, that’s why.”

She nodded and motioned for him to continue. Mickey felt more at ease, the vodka relaxed him and loosened his resolve to hold people at arms-length. He told her about moving back into his house with Ian and Svetlana. After that, he sat smiling quietly, thinking. Remembering how the three of them became a sort-of cozy little family for a while.

“So, after all of that,” Mickey exhaled, feeling slightly dizzy. “I got a letter saying the kid might not be mine, but even if he is, the sucker who married the _rosiysʹka poviya_ wants to adopt him and I gotta sign my rights over. They’re supposed to take my – whatever you call it – my DNA sample today.”

Dr. Sanchez nodded and took a cigarette for herself.

“Wow. That’s a lot to handle on your own, Mickey.”

They didn’t speak until they were both reaching for another cigarette.

“Is this really what you do all day?” Mickey asked. Dr. Sanchez chuckled.

“Well, yes.”

“Does it pay a lot?”

“I do ok.”

Mickey leaned back in his chair.

“Tell me about your mother,” she flicked her cigarette into the ashtray.

Mickey coughed and knit his eyebrows together.

“No,” he said firmly.

“I thought so,” she replied and crossed one leg over the other.

“The fuck does that mean?” He clenched a fist.

“I had an inkling.”

She gestured to him with an open palm, “Which was it? Addict or Absent?”

“She’s dead, leave it,” Mickey growled.

The CO knocking on the office door prevented further conversation, to Mickey’s temporary relief. Dr. Sanchez smoothly stashed the vodka and ashtray on her way to open the door. The CO and another man in plain clothes who Mickey didn’t recognize were standing in the doorway.

“Doc, this is Jerry from Prixer Lab,” The CO said.

“Hi,” Jerry smiled. “I’m here to take a DNA sample – do you mind if we do it here? I need two witnesses to maintain the chain of custody.”

Dr. Sanchez pouted her lip out, considering the request and nodded. “Sure thing, come on in.”

Less than five minutes later, Mickey’s basal muscosa had been swabbed and he was on his way to the kitchen.

The inmates in the culinary program were going to be preparing all of the prison meals starting the next week and Mickey was feeling confident about himself in that respect. He focused on his work, which was as enjoyable as a prison work detail was ever going to be. Returning to his cell at the end of the day where Ian was always waiting was alarmingly normal. The door slammed shut and the lovers could talk, argue or fuck in private.

xXx

"Mr. Milkovich, come in,” the Warden’s assistant had a pleasant way about her, for someone who worked in a prison.

Mickey swallowed nervously, wiping his palms on his thighs when he stood. Looking grim, he walked through the door.

A sick feeling swelled up in his chest and he stopped dead in his tracks; Dr. Sanchez was there, sitting with her ankles crossed demurely, balancing a notepad on her lap. Warden Brigham was perched on his desk, his jacket was draped over the back of his high-backed brown leather chair.

“Ah, come in Mikhailo, come in,” he gestured to the empty club chair opposite the doctor.

Mickey nodded respectfully and slunk down into the seat so hard in tipped backward on two legs, making Mickey look as off-kilter as he felt.

He knew before Dr. Sanchez began speaking.

Yevgeny wasn’t his son.

They could have delivered the news to him in his cell, or in the kitchen if the boy was his. Getting called to the Warden’s office in the presence of a mental health professional could only mean that they wanted to seclude him in case of an emotional outburst.

“So, I’m going to level with you, Mickey,” the shrink said adjusting her glasses on her nose.

“He’s not mine, I get it,” Mickey ran his fingers through his hair.

Dr. Sanchez sat back in her chair and rested her cheek on her fist.

“No. He isn’t.”

Mickey directed his glare to the floor. He took a few deep breaths.

“OK. Is that all? Can I go now? I got shit to do,” he cracked his knuckles and looked up at the Warden.

The look exchanged between the doctor and the Warden made a tight knot form in the pit of his gut.

“There’s just a little bit more, Mikhailo,” Brigham said.

“Mickey,” he said through gritted teeth.

 _Stop fucking calling me that_.

“Yes, right. Certainly. Mickey,” the Warden gestured towards Dr. Sanchez, indicating he wanted her to continue the discussion.

“Yes, Mickey,” Sanchez looked nervously at him before she held out the opened white envelope with the Prixer Laboratory logo on it. Mickey eyed her suspiciously as he accepted it. He slid the pure white sheet of paper out and held it in both hands as he read. The words didn’t quite make sense. He read and reread it.

The subject in question (M. Milkovich) has been eliminated as a possible father of the minor child in question. It is likely the minor child in question is descended from the same paternal line as the subject in question. Further testing required.

“Do you have any questions?” Dr. Sanchez eyed him carefully.

“Well, yeah – what the fuck -” he glanced up at the Warden, who raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry.”

The older man smiled, “Not the first time I’ve heard the word ‘fuck’ Mickey.”

Mickey nodded and looked back at the piece of paper in his hands.

“What does this last part mean? We ‘descend from the same paternal line’?”

Dr. Sanchez cleared her throat.

“It means,” she began, clearly choosing her words carefully. “It means that you have the same, well, it’s not definitive, but it appears likely that you and Yevgeny have...the same...father.”

Mickey’s expression went stone cold and he sat back in his chair like a mallet had just pounded into his breastbone.

“Terry? Terry is the kid’s real father? He’s - Yevgeny is my fucking brother?” Mickey clenched both fists.

“Well, we don’t know the full story, Mickey. It might even be a lab error. If I were you, I’d request a retest,” the Warden moved to put a reassuring hand on Mickey’s shoulder but the way Mickey shifted away from him in an unmistakable “do not touch me” position made him rethink it.

“No. I don’t need a goddamned retest. I need to get the fuck out of here so I can find Terry, wrap my hands around his - “

“That isn’t useful, Mickey. You know it isn’t.”

He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut; then he started to laugh.

“What a joke. What a fucking pathetic joke.”

“Mickey,” she stood and moved to approach him.

“No! Don’t. You want me to talk – you want me to express myself? Well now I want to talk – is there a problem?” he raged.

Dr. Sanchez looked up at the Warden.

“Could we have the room? Please? Ten minutes.”

The Warden looked visibly uncomfortable, He was clearly not used to people asking him to leave his own office and he was clearly unsure whether it was safe to leave the young psychiatrist alone with an inmate who might be on the verge of a massive freak out.

“I don’t know, are you sure?”

“I appreciate your concern, Warden. Very chivalrous of you. But believe me, I can handle myself. Besides he isn’t going to do anything – are you Mickey?”

Mickey tried wetting his lips but his mouth was too dry.

“No. I’m not. I’m cool. I’m cool.” He tilted his head to one side until he felt his neck pop.

The Warden pointed at Mickey.

“There is a CO just on the other side of this door. Don’t get any ideas, Milkovich. You’ll be in seg before you can count to three.”

Mickey pursed his lips and nodded, indicating that he understood. The Warden looked once more between the doctor and the inmate.

“Ok. Don’t forget what I said,” he warned before he left the office.

“So. Talk. Just, you know, keep the volume down – if you start yelling and ranting they’re going to come through that door.”

Mickey cleared his throat.

“I only married her because she was knocked up. He forced me to. He made me clean up his mess and I almost lost Ian because of it.”

“Interesting,” she looked at him over her steepled fingers.

“What is? Don’t do that shrink shit -” His blue eyes flashed and his face flushed with anger.

“It is interesting, Mickey, that you just found out the child you thought was yours might in fact be your half brother and your mind went almost immediately to Ian.”

Mickey scoffed.

_My mind always immediately goes to Ian – this is nothing fucking new._

“The way I see it, Doc-” he cracked his knuckles. “If that Ruskie whore hadn’t pinned the kid on me, I never would have married her, Ian wouldn’t have ditched town and joined the army and I could have -”

“Stayed in the closet?” She challenged him.

Mickey’s jaw fell a bit, the tips of his ears burned red.

“Didn’t you come out at – what's the baby’s name?”

“Yevgeny.”

“Didn’t you come out at Yevgeny’s christening? Without him, maybe you never would have come out at all.”

“I would have eventu- I didn’t tell you that.”

She smiled and chuckled a little. “Well, as you said, a certain big, redheaded birdie we both know talks a lot. Normally, it would be unethical for me to mention anything he said in session but it’s a grey area here as that information related directly to you.”

She crossed and recrossed her legs before she went on.

“It’s fucked. You know? This whole situation is fucked. I know you don’t want to hear this right now but-”

“Don’t tell me everything’s gonna be ok. Just don’t. My son isn’t my son; he’s my brother. I married a whore. My boyfriend stole his brother’s ID to join the army, then he cracked like an egg. I broke out of jail and hid in Mexico. I don’t want to hear ‘everything’s gonna be ok’; because it never is. I’m always waiting for the next dumpster fire. It’s not a matter of _if_ shit hits the fan – it's _when_."

Mickey collapsed forward, exhausted. He rested his weight on his forearms and leaned against his legs.

The knock on the door made him sit up straight again, wiping his eyes. Dr. Sanchez opened it slightly and blocked Mickey from view to give him a little privacy, it was the Warden.

“If you’re done in my office, Milkovich has to get to his work detail.”

Mickey quickly composed himself and squeezed past Dr. Sanchez without saying anything and rushed to the kitchen. He dove into the tasks at hand, grateful for the distraction and excited at the prospect of moving forward in the program. Every day was one day closer to his release date, one day closer to being with Ian on the outside, one day closer to a fresh start and the rest of their lives.

Exhausted at the end of his shift, Mickey laid down on his bunk and covered his eyes with his arm. When Ian returned from a visit with Lip, Mickey was snoring.

He stood over Mickey and smiled. When he watched Mickey drive across the border into Mexico, he thought he’d never see him again. He thought it was over between them, even though everything in his body and unreliable brain screamed at him that Mickey was so much more than a boyfriend. He saw Mickey for who and what he was: his best friend, lover, and soulmate.

“You’re really freaking me out now, Gallagher,” Mickey joked as he moved his arm from his face.

Ian startled a little and laughed. “I thought you were sleeping.”

"I was until I felt you standing over me like the fucking chupacabra."

They shared a laugh and Ian bent at the waist to kiss him; Mickey pulled away.

“He’s not mine,” he said matter-of-a-factly.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. The baby. He’s not mine.”

“Jesus,” Ian was left gobsmacked. “Mick, I-”

“Oh, it gets better. It looks like he’s my brother.”

Mickey moved over, making enough room for Ian to lay next to him before he filled him in on the events of the day.

“That’s...that’s...”

“Yep. Jerry Springer. It’s very Jerry Springer.”

It was quiet between them for a few moments. Ian slipped his arm under Mickey and pulled him into his chest.

“I’m sorry, Mick.”

“Don’t be. You didn’t do anything.”

“No, I know. But I’m sorry.”

He felt Mickey shrug his shoulder. “One less thing to concern ourselves with when we get out of here. You would have made a good step-mother for him, though,” one side of his mouth curled up into a grin and Ian returned the look.

“Well, ya know, for me to be a step-mother that means I’d have to be - “

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.” Mickey kissed Ian’s mouth and rested his head on his chest.

They listened to each other breath until they both fell asleep.


End file.
